Natural Variation in Testosterone is Associated With Hypoalgesia in Healthy Women

Bartley, Emily J.; Palit, Shreela; Kuhn, B.; Kerr, Kara L.; Terry, Ellen L.; DelVentura, J.; Rhudy, Jamie L.

doi:10.1097/ajp.0000000000000153

Cited by 50 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(90 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Consistent with this hypothesis, sensitivity to painful stimuli was negatively correlated with salivary testosterone in a sample of U.S. women (Bartley et al 2015). Additionally, men with androgen deficiency exhibited greater tolerance to multiple forms of induced pain after treatment with exogenous testosterone (Basaria et al 2015).…”

Section: What Is Testosterone Doing?mentioning

confidence: 64%

Testosterone and reproductive effort in male primates

Muller

2017

Hormones and Behavior

135

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Considerable evidence suggests that the steroid hormone testosterone mediates major life-history trade-offs in vertebrates, promoting mating effort at the expense of parenting effort or survival. Observations from a range of wild primates support the “Challenge Hypothesis,” which posits that variation in male testosterone is more closely associated with aggressive mating competition than with reproductive physiology. In both seasonally and non-seasonally breeding species, males increase testosterone production primarily when competing for fecund females. In species where males compete to maintain long-term access to females, testosterone increases when males are threatened with losing access to females, rather than during mating periods. And when male status is linked to mating success, and dependent on aggression, high-ranking males normally maintain higher testosterone levels than subordinates, particularly when dominance hierarchies are unstable. Trade-offs between parenting effort and mating effort appear to be weak in most primates, because direct investment in the form of infant transport and provisioning is rare. Instead, infant protection is the primary form of paternal investment in the order. Testosterone does not inhibit this form of investment, which relies on male aggression. Testosterone has a wide range of effects in primates that plausibly function to support male competitive behavior. These include psychological effects related to dominance striving, analgesic effects, and effects on the development and maintenance of the armaments and adornments that males employ in mating competition.

show abstract

Section: What Is Testosterone Doing?mentioning

confidence: 64%

Testosterone and reproductive effort in male primates

Muller

2017

Hormones and Behavior

135

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…No group or OPRM1 genotype difference was noted (Table 2). As gonadal hormones may affect the resting-state FC222324, the hormone fluctuations were regressed out as covariates of non-interest during the subsequent image processing.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The OPRM1 A118G polymorphism modulates the descending pain modulatory system for individual pain experience in young women with primary dysmenorrhea

Wei

Chen

Lin³

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The mu-opioid receptor (OPRM1) A118G polymorphism underpins different pain sensitivity and opioid-analgesic outcome with unclear effect on the descending pain modulatory system (DPMS). Primary dysmenorrhea (PDM), the most prevalent gynecological problem with clear painful and pain free conditions, serves as a good clinical model of spontaneous pain. The objective of this imaging genetics study was therefore to explore if differences in functional connectivity (FC) of the DPMS between the OPRM1 A118G polymorphisms could provide a possible explanation for the differences in pain experience. Sixty-one subjects with PDM and 65 controls participated in the current study of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the menstruation and peri-ovulatory phases; blood samples were taken for genotyping. We studied 3 aspects of pain experience, namely, mnemonic pain (recalled overall menstrual pain), present pain (spontaneous menstrual pain), and experimental pain (thermal pain) intensities. We report that G allele carriers, in comparison to AA homozygotes, exhibited functional hypo-connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and periaqueductal gray (PAG). Furthermore, G allele carriers lost the correlation with spontaneous pain experience and exhibited dysfunctional DPMS by means of PAG-seeded FC dynamics. This OPRM1 A118G-DPMS interaction is one plausible neurological mechanism underlying the individual differences in pain experience.

show abstract

“…The inverse relationship between estradiol and effusion-synovitis volume may be a result of the antiinflammatory effects of low dose estrogen which is a characteristic in this postmenopausal population. Circulating testosterone gradually decrease in postmenopausal women and the low testosterone levels have been linked to increased pain sensitivity 41 . Similarly, in a recent study, community-dwelling elderly women with lower sex hormone levels were found to have more chronic musculoskeletal pain 9 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%