TY - JOUR
T1 - Testosterone and male cognitive performance in Tsimane forager-horticulturalists
AU - Trumble, Benjamin C.
AU - Stieglitz, Jonathan
AU - Thompson, Melissa Emery
AU - Fuerstenberg, Eric
AU - Kaplan, Hillard
AU - Gurven, Michael
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
PY - 2015/7/1
Y1 - 2015/7/1
N2 - Objective: Testosterone plays a vital role in brain function and behavior. Among humans, age-related decline in testosterone is associated with declining cognitive functioning, and aging men with higher testosterone maintain better cognitive performance. However, most research focuses on industrialized populations with widespread access to formal schooling, high testosterone, and low parasite and pathogen load. We examine whether men's testosterone is associated with cognitive performance among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia despite relatively lower levels of testosterone and higher immune burden. Methods: Ninety-four Tsimane men aged 36-86 (median=49) participated in a cognitive battery (assessing short- and long-term recall, digit span, semantic memory, and visual scan) and provided urine and blood samples to measure testosterone and markers of immune activation. Linear mixed effects regressions were used to model associations between cognitive performance and testosterone, controlling for age, years of schooling, Spanish fluency, and village residence. For a subset (n=66) we included immune activation markers to examine mediator effects. Results: Testosterone is positively associated with short- and long-term verbal memory (β=0.267, P=0.018; β=0.326, P=0.005 respectively) and visual scanning (β=0.306, P=0.008) after controlling for potential confounders. Markers of immune activation were negatively associated with cognitive function, but did not change the associations between testosterone and cognitive performance. Conclusion: Tsimane men show positive associations between testosterone and cognitive performance, particularly for recall and visual scanning, despite higher immune burden. Testosterone may help motivate both physical and cognitive capacities that were essential for extracting the difficult-to-acquire, high-quality resources upon which humans relied over evolutionary history.
AB - Objective: Testosterone plays a vital role in brain function and behavior. Among humans, age-related decline in testosterone is associated with declining cognitive functioning, and aging men with higher testosterone maintain better cognitive performance. However, most research focuses on industrialized populations with widespread access to formal schooling, high testosterone, and low parasite and pathogen load. We examine whether men's testosterone is associated with cognitive performance among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of Bolivia despite relatively lower levels of testosterone and higher immune burden. Methods: Ninety-four Tsimane men aged 36-86 (median=49) participated in a cognitive battery (assessing short- and long-term recall, digit span, semantic memory, and visual scan) and provided urine and blood samples to measure testosterone and markers of immune activation. Linear mixed effects regressions were used to model associations between cognitive performance and testosterone, controlling for age, years of schooling, Spanish fluency, and village residence. For a subset (n=66) we included immune activation markers to examine mediator effects. Results: Testosterone is positively associated with short- and long-term verbal memory (β=0.267, P=0.018; β=0.326, P=0.005 respectively) and visual scanning (β=0.306, P=0.008) after controlling for potential confounders. Markers of immune activation were negatively associated with cognitive function, but did not change the associations between testosterone and cognitive performance. Conclusion: Tsimane men show positive associations between testosterone and cognitive performance, particularly for recall and visual scanning, despite higher immune burden. Testosterone may help motivate both physical and cognitive capacities that were essential for extracting the difficult-to-acquire, high-quality resources upon which humans relied over evolutionary history.
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U2 - 10.1002/ajhb.22665
DO - 10.1002/ajhb.22665
M3 - Article
C2 - 25429990
AN - SCOPUS:84931560732
SN - 1042-0533
VL - 27
SP - 582
EP - 586
JO - American Journal of Human Biology
JF - American Journal of Human Biology
IS - 4
ER -