Testosterone Reactivity and Neural Activation in the MID task

• Main Author: Lee, Yoojin
• Format: Others
• Published: ScholarWorks@UNO 2014
• Subjects: testosterone; neuroendocrinology; reward seeking; monetary incentive delay task; electoencephalography; Biological Psychology; Cognitive Psychology
• Online Access: http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1930; http://scholarworks.uno.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2979&context=td

The purpose of the project was to determine if testosterone reactivity and neural changes could be observed in response to a reward-seeking competitive task, respectively, and whether testosterone was related to neural activation. Forty nine undergraduate students were recruited playing the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID). We found that a subset of participants (N=20) showed testosterone reactivity to the task (ps < .05). During the EEG analyses, cue had a main effect on FRN amplitude in a trend level (p = .084): The large incentive cue triggered smaller (less negative) FRN amplitude than the small incentive cue did (p < .05), especially during the second reward seeking block (A’) (p = .065) and especially within males (p < .05). Testosterone level and reactivity were not further associated with FRN amplitude (ps > .1). Taken together, results show both testosterone and FRN amplitude may be sensitive to a complex reward-seeking and competition.