Trial reportPsychoneuroendocrinology2016
Testosterone reduces functional connectivity during the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' Test.
Trial report in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Does testosterone impair men's cognitive empathy? Evidence from two large-scale randomized controlled trials.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Trial
- Human brain network for reading the mind from the eyes: beyond activated and deactivated regions.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- The aporetic dialogues of Modena on gender differences: Is it all about testosterone? Episode II: Empathy.Andrology · 2026Review
- Abnormal Functional Connectivity of the Primary Sensory Network in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Sex Differences, Early Overdevelopment, and Clinical Significance.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Self-experience of a negative event alters responses to others in similar states through prefrontal cortex CRF mechanisms.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- An fMRI study on alexithymia and affective state recognition in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2024Article
- Hormonal contraceptive exposure relates to changes in resting state functional connectivity of anterior cingulate cortex and amygdala.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2023Article
- Sex and age interact in reading the mind in the eyes.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Nandrolone Supplementation Promotes AMPK Activation and DivergentNeurochemical research · 2022Article
- Testosterone administration does not alter the brain activity supporting cognitive and affective empathy.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- The Relationship of Steroid Hormones, Genes Related to Testosterone Metabolism and Behavior in Boys With Autism in Slovakia.Psychiatry investigation · 2022Article
- A Systematic Review of the Role of Oxytocin, Cortisol, and Testosterone in Facial Emotional Processing.Biology · 2021Review
- Pubertal Testosterone and Brain Response to Faces in Young Adulthood: An Interplay between Organizational and Activational Effects in Young Men.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021Article
- Friend vs. Foe: Cognitive and Affective Empathy in Women With Different Hormonal States.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Testosterone synthesis in the female songbird brain.Hormones and behavior · 2020Article
- Neural responses in the pain matrix when observing pain of others are unaffected by testosterone administration in women.Experimental brain research · 2020Article
- Effects of exogenous testosterone application on network connectivity within emotion regulation systems.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Testosterone reduces the threat premium in competitive resource division.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- What Do You Have in Mind? Measures to Assess Mental State Reasoning in Neuropsychiatric Populations.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2019Review
- Brain connectivity aberrations in anabolic-androgenic steroid users.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Women on average outperform men in cognitive-empathic abilities, such as the capacity to infer motives from the bodily cues of others, which is vital for effective social interaction. The steroid hormone testosterone is thought to play a role in this sexual dimorphism. Strikingly, a previous study shows that a single administration of testosterone in women impairs performance on the 'Reading the Mind in Eyes' Test (RMET), a task in which emotions have to be inferred from the eye-region of a face. This effect was mediated by the 2D:4D ratio, the ratio between the length of the index and ring finger, a proxy for fetal testosterone. Research in typical individuals, in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC), and in individuals with brain lesions has established that performance on the RMET depends on the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that a single administration of testosterone in 16 young women significantly altered connectivity of the left IFG with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the supplementary motor area (SMA) during RMET performance, independent of 2D:4D ratio. This IFG-ACC-SMA network underlies the integration and selection of sensory information, and for action preparation during cognitive empathic behavior. Our findings thus reveal a neural mechanism by which testosterone can impair emotion-recognition ability, and may link to the symptomatology of ASC, in which the same neural network is implicated.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.