Perinatal Testosterone Exposure and Cerebral Lateralisation in Adult Males: Evidence for the Callosal Hypothesis
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1
University of Western Australia, School of Psychology, Australia
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2
University of Western Australia, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Australia
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3
University of Western Australia, School of Women’s and Infant’s Health, Australia
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4
University of Melbourne, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Australia
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5
Royal Women’s Hospital, Australia
Two competing theories address the influence of fetal testosterone on laterality: one proposing exposure to high levels of fetal testosterone is related to atypical lateralisation (Geschwind and Galaburda hypothesis), the other proposing high levels of fetal testosterone exaggerate the typical lateralisation pattern (Witelson's callosal hypothesis). The aim of this study is to investigate whether testosterone concentrations from umbilical cord blood are associated with hemispheric laterality for language and spatial memory in adulthood. We examined this relationship in a well-characterised cohort for whom umbilical cord plasma were available. Male participants with high (>.15 nmol) and low (<.10 nmol) levels of perinatal testosterone were selected from the cohort and invited to take part in the study (n = 18 in each group). Cerebral laterality was measured using functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasonography (fTCD), which uses ultrasound to measure blood flow in the left and right middle cerebral arteries. Recordings were taken while the participants completed word generation and visual short-term memory tasks. A laterality index (LI) was calculated by computing the relative difference in blood flow velocity between the two hemispheres. Examining the data in terms of left (positive LI) and right (negative LI) lateralisation revealed that right hemisphere language lateralisation was more likely for individuals from the low testosterone group (11%) than those from the high testosterone group (0%), χ2 = 4.50, df = 1, p = .034. There was no significant difference in the frequency of right or left lateralisation for visuospatial memory as a function of testosterone level. The current study is the most direct test to date of the relationship between fetal testosterone exposure and cerebral laterality in adults. The findings indicate that fetal testosterone exposure is related to the development of language laterality in a direction that supports the callosal hypothesis.
Keywords:
Language,
cerebral laterality,
fTCD,
visuospatial memory,
Fetal testosterone
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Language
Citation:
Hollier
L,
Maybery
M,
Keelan
J,
Hickey
M and
Whitehouse
A
(2015). Perinatal Testosterone Exposure and Cerebral Lateralisation in Adult Males: Evidence for the Callosal Hypothesis.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00119
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
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Correspondence:
Ms. Lauren Hollier, University of Western Australia, School of Psychology, Perth, Australia, lauren.hollier@graduate.uwa.edu.au