Abstract

Background

Testosterone is associated with sexual desire and performance in men, but little is known about cognitive mechanisms underlying this relationship. Even less is known about the influence of estradiol, despite its production from testosterone, and high receptor density in brain regions related to male sexual behavior.

Method

We used eye-tracking to compare men’s visual attention to images of fully clothed (i.e. neutral) and minimally clothed (i.e. sexy) models in three groups: androgen-deprived (n = 6) and not androgen-deprived with prostate cancer (n = 11), and healthy controls (n = 7). We also assessed effects of serum testosterone, estradiol, and sex hormone-binding globulin levels.

Results

We found no group effect for fixations to sexy compared to neutral images, and no influence of testosterone on either total fixations, or proportion of fixations to sexy images. In contrast, we found that sex hormone binding globulin positively predicted total fixations, and estradiol positively predicted proportion of total fixations on sexy images--regardless of androgen treatment status.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that visual attention to sexual stimuli in men may be significantly affected by hormones. This has potential implications for clinical populations that experience sexual side effects, such as prostate cancer patients on androgen deprivation therapy.

中文翻译：

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老年男性对性刺激的激素和视觉注意：一项探索性调查

摘要

背景

睾酮与男性的性欲和表现有关，但对这种关系背后的认知机制知之甚少。尽管雌二醇是由睾酮产生的，而且与男性性行为相关的大脑区域的受体密度很高，但对雌二醇的影响知之甚少。

方法

我们使用眼动追踪来比较男性对三组全穿（即中性）和最少穿（即性感）模特图像的视觉注意力：雄激素剥夺（n = 6）和未雄激素剥夺的前列腺癌（n = 11) 和健康对照组 ( n = 7)。我们还评估了血清睾酮、雌二醇和性激素结合球蛋白水平的影响。

结果

我们发现与中性图像相比，对性感的注视没有群体效应，并且睾酮对总注视或对性感图像的注视比例没有影响。相比之下，我们发现性激素结合球蛋白正向预测总注视，而雌二醇正向预测性感图像上总注视的比例——无论雄激素治疗状态如何。

结论

我们的研究结果表明，男性对性刺激的视觉注意力可能会受到激素的显着影响。这对经历性副作用的临床人群具有潜在的影响，例如接受雄激素剥夺治疗的前列腺癌患者。