ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2018
Interactive effects of testosterone and cortisol on hippocampal volume and episodic memory in middle-aged men.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- Testosterone in patients with borderline personality disorder: from hair analyses to social behavior.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Review
- An atlas of age- and sex-related volumetric alterations of grey matter in subcortical regions: The case of 46,111 UK Biobank participants.Mechanisms of ageing and development · 2025Article
- Positive day-to-day relationships between the cortisol and testosterone awakening responses in elite male athletes.Biology of sport · 2025Article
- Longitudinal relationships between daily activity and hippocampal atrophy in Japanese dwellers.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2025Article
- Leveraging research into sex differences and steroid hormones to improve brain health.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2025Review
- Hippocampal subfield volume differences between female-to-male transgender individuals with cross-sex hormone therapy and cisgender women.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- The influence of light and heavy training weeks on the cortisol and testosterone awakening responses of elite male judokas: is skeletal muscle damage a mediating factor?Biology of sport · 2024Article
- Transcriptome Analysis of Choroidal Endothelium Links Androgen Receptor Role to Central Serous Chorioretinopathy.European journal of ophthalmology · 2024Article
- Sex Differences in Stress Response: Classical Mechanisms and Beyond.Current neuropharmacology · 2024Article
- Sex and age differences in social and cognitive function in offspring exposed to late gestational hypoxia.Biology of sex differences · 2023Article
- Erectile Function, Sexual Satisfaction, and Cognitive Decline in Men From Midlife to Older Adulthood.The Gerontologist · 2023Article
- Sex is a defining feature of neuroimaging phenotypes in major brain disorders.Human brain mapping · 2022Review
- Salivary Testosterone and Cortisol Levels in Tunisian Elderly Male Patients With Mild Alzheimer's Disease. Implications of Musical Therapy And/Or Physical Rehabilitation.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Article
- On the role of sex steroids in biological functions by classical and non-classical pathways. An update.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2021Review
- Psychoneuroendocrine protocol to comprehensively study sexually dimorphic cognition.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2021Article
- Higher post-encoding cortisol benefits the selective consolidation of emotional aspects of memory.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2021Article
- Sex Hormone Depletion Augments Glucocorticoid Induction of Tau Hyperphosphorylation in Male Rat Brain.Neuroscience · 2021Article
- Androgen Effects on Neural Plasticity.Androgens: clinical research and therapeutics · 2021Review
- Post-Encoding Stress Does Not Enhance Memory Consolidation: The Role of Cortisol and Testosterone Reactivity.Brain sciences · 2020Article
- Beyond the challenge hypothesis: The emergence of the dual-hormone hypothesis and recommendations for future research.Hormones and behavior · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Animal and human research suggests that testosterone is associated with hippocampal structure and function. Studies examining the association between testosterone and either hippocampal structure or hippocampal-mediated cognitive processes have overwhelmingly focused on the effects of testosterone alone, without considering the interaction of other neuroendocrine factors. The aim of the present study was to examine the interactive effects of testosterone and cortisol in relation to hippocampal volume and episodic memory in a sample of late-middle aged men from the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging. The average age of participants was 56.3 years (range 51-60). Salivary hormone samples were collected at multiple time-points on two non-consecutive at-home days, and an in-lab assessment. Area under the curve with respect to ground measures for cortisol and testosterone were utilized. Significant testosterone-by-cortisol interactions were observed for hippocampal volume, and episodic memory. When cortisol levels were elevated (1 SD above the mean), testosterone levels were positively associated with hippocampal volume and memory performance. However, when cortisol levels were low (1 SD below the mean), testosterone levels were inversely related to hippocampal volume and memory performance. These findings suggest that in context of high cortisol levels, testosterone may be neuroprotective. In contrast, low testosterone may also be neuroprotective in the context of low cortisol levels. To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of such an interaction in a structural brain measure and an associated cognitive ability. These results argue in favor of broadening neuroendocrine research to consider the simultaneous and interactive effects of multiple hormones on brain structure and function.
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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.