Abstract
A sound-induced sympathetic tone has been used as an index for orienting responses to auditory stimuli. The resting testosterone/cortisol ratio is a biomarker of social aggression that drives an approaching behavior in response to environmental stimuli, and a higher testosterone level and a lower cortisol level can facilitate the sympathetic response to environmental stimuli. Therefore, it is possible that the testosterone/cortisol ratio is correlated with the sound-induced sympathetic tone. The current study investigated the relationship between the resting testosterone/cortisol ratio and vasoconstriction induced by listening to sound stimuli. Twenty healthy males aged 29.0 ± 0.53 years (mean ± S.E.M) participated in the study. They came to the laboratory for 3 days and listened to one of three types of sound stimuli for 1 min on each day. Saliva samples were collected for an analysis of salivary testosterone and cortisol levels on the day of each experiment. After the collecting the saliva sample, we measured the blood volume pulse (BVP) amplitude at a fingertip. Since vasoconstriction is mediated by the activation of the sympathetic nerves, the strength of the reduction in BVP amplitude at a fingertip was called the BVP response (finger BVPR). No difference was observed between the sound-induced finger BVPR for the three types of sound stimuli (p = 0.779). The correlation coefficient between the sound-induced finger BVPR and the salivary testosterone/cortisol ratio within participants was significantly different from no correlation (p = 0.011) and there was a trend toward a significance in the correlation between the sound-induced finger BVPR and the salivary testosterone/cortisol ratio between participants (r = 0.39, p = 0.088). These results suggest that the testosterone/cortisol ratio affects the difference in the sound-evoked sympathetic response.
Highlights
Sound-induced sympathetic responses have been widely examined in psychophysiological studies (Minami et al, 1993; Hay et al, 1997; Péréon et al, 2001; Ooishi and Kashino, 2012; Sato and Ooishi, 2012)
Since the fingertip vasoconstriction represented as a decrease in the blood volume pulse (BVP) amplitude is regarded as a purely noradrenergic cardiovascular sympathetic tone (Grote et al, 2003), this study examined the relationship between the resting testosterone/cortisol ratio and the degree of the decrease in the BVP amplitude induced by sound stimuli
To investigate the possibility that the strength of the sound-induced vasoconstriction is correlated with the basal testosterone/cortisol ratio between participants, the finger BVPR, the salivary cortisol level, the salivary testosterone level, and testosterone/cortisol ratio were averaged, respectively, among three data for three sound stimuli for each participant
Summary
Sound-induced sympathetic responses have been widely examined in psychophysiological studies (Minami et al, 1993; Hay et al, 1997; Péréon et al, 2001; Ooishi and Kashino, 2012; Sato and Ooishi, 2012). The administration of testosterone increases the muscle sympathetic nerve activity in human beings (Miner et al, 2013) and recovers from the castration-induced decrease in the noradrenergic innervation of rat vas deferens (Lara et al, 1985). From these previous studies, it could be suggested that a higher level of testosterone with a lower level of cortisol facilitates the sympathetic response
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