Does testosterone affect emotional perception after social approach-avoidance?

Testosterone may promote approach-related behaviors by modulating sensitivity to social threat. In humans, testosterone increases amygdala activation to angry facial expressions, specifically when threat approach is required. As both increased and decreased threat detection after testosterone administration have been reported, we aim to contribute to the discussion by sharing additional results, i.e., perception ratings, from our previously published findings. Here, a single dose of 0.5 mg of testosterone increased amygdala activation during threat approach, and decreased it during threat avoidance. After the MRI session, about 5 hours post-administration, participants rated their emotional perception of the faces to which they had made approach and avoidance actions in the social approach-avoidance task

Testosterone biases the amygdala toward social threat approach

Testosterone enhances amygdala reactions to social threat, but it remains unclear whether this neuroendocrine mechanism is relevant for understanding its dominance-enhancing properties; namely, whether testosterone biases the human amygdala toward threat approach. This pharmacological functional magnetic-resonance imaging study shows that testosterone administration increases amygdala responses in healthy women during threat approach and decreases it during threat avoidance. These findings support and extend motivational salience models by offering a neuroendocrine mechanism of motivation-specific amygdala tuning