title: Testosterone biases the amygdala toward social threat approach.
abstract: Testosterone enhances amygdala reactions to social threat, but it remains unclear whether this neuroendocrine mechanism is relevant for understanding its dominance-enhancing properties; namely, whether testosterone biases the human amygdala toward threat approach. This pharmacological functional magnetic-resonance imaging study shows that testosterone administration increases amygdala responses in healthy women during threat approach and decreases it during threat avoidance. These findings support and extend motivational salience models by offering a neuroendocrine mechanism of motivation-specific amygdala tuning.
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, Netherlands. ; Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany. ; Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA)-Translational Brain Medicine, 52428/52074 Jülich/Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Sina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Radke
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, Netherlands. ; Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 HE Nijmegen, Netherlands. ; Sobell Department for Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, UK.
authors.forename: Inge
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Volman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
authors.forename: Pranjal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mehta
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Veerle
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: van Son
authors.affiliation: Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 HE Nijmegen, Netherlands. ; Department of Clinical Psychology and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, 2333 AK Leiden, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Dorien
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Enter
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, Netherlands. ; Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 HE Nijmegen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sanfey
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Toni
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, 2333 AK Leiden, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Ellen R A
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: de Bruijn
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 GL Nijmegen, Netherlands. ; Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 HE Nijmegen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Roelofs
keywords: amygdala; approach-avoidance; motivational salience; social approach; testosterone