Abstract
A body of literature reports higher rates of depression and neuroticism in female samples compared to male samples. Numerous studies have investigated the role of prenatal sex hormone exposure in this sex difference, using the ratio between the second and fourth digit of the hand (“2D:4D”) as a putative marker. However, the sample sizes of those studies were mostly small and results remained inconclusive. The aim of the present study is to test the suggested associations between depression, neuroticism and the 2D:4D ratio in a large, representative sample of over 3,000 German individuals. It was hypothesized that a higher 2D:4D (supposedly representing a more “feminine” prenatal hormone exposure) would positively predict (1) one’s history of depression as well as (2) neuroticism rates and (3) acute depressive symptom scores. Controlling for biological sex, we only found suggestive evidence for linear associations with neuroticism in the case of left hand 2D:4D ratios and the mean 2D:4D of both hands. However, additional analyses indicated that these results may have been spurious due to confounding. Our findings suggest that the 2D:4D ratio is not a relevant predictor of depression, while there was mixed evidence in the case of neuroticism.
Highlights
Depressive disorders are among the leading causes of years lived with disability in the world[1]
At least one plausible mechanism has been proposed in the literature for the effect of prenatal sex hormone exposure on the development of depression and neuroticism: Higher prenatal testosterone exposure has been associated with increased activation to positive s timuli[36], while depression and neuroticism are associated with increased activation to negative s timuli[37,38]
Three outcome variables were assessed: a dichotomous self-report indicating whether the participant had received a diagnosis of a depressive disorder by a medical professional in the past (“History of depression”), neuroticism scores on an abbreviated five-factor personality questionnaire (Big Five Inventory-SOEP)[56] and acute depressive symptom scores measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2)[57,58]
Summary
Depressive disorders are among the leading causes of years lived with disability in the world[1]. Could lead to higher chronicity and the effects of pubertal hormonal changes on neurotransmitter a ctivity[12,13,14,15] As none of these can fully explain the sex difference in the findings on its own, it appears likely that a combination of factors contributes to the sex difference. Despite conflicting opinions about its usefulness, various studies have employed 2D:4D as a proxy measure for prenatal sex hormone exposure in order to explain sexually dimorphic behaviors, including depression and neuroticism. At least one plausible mechanism has been proposed in the literature for the effect of prenatal sex hormone exposure on the development of depression and neuroticism: Higher prenatal testosterone exposure has been associated with increased activation to positive s timuli[36], while depression and neuroticism are associated with increased activation to negative s timuli[37,38]. A detailed tabular summary of these previous findings can be found in the first section of the supplementary materials
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