Evidence for the influence of testosterone in the performance of spatial navigation in a virtual water maze in women but not in men

“However, the correlation of circulating testosterone with navigation ability is disputed (Driscoll et al. 2005; Burkitt et al. 2007).”

“Although males perform better than female in the navigation strategy, the relationship between navigation and one’s level of testosterone has not been consistently demonstrated (Driscoll et al., 2005; Burkitt et al., 2007).”

“…age (young subjects outperform older subjects), and testosterone levels (high levels correlate with better performance) (Astur et al., 1998; Burkitt et al., 2007; Driscoll et al., 2005), such mazes have not yet been used to study effects of hormone therapy on cognitive function in…”

“When virtual Morris water maze was used, a positive correlation between testosterone and spatial navigation was found in women, but not in men (Burkitt et al., 2007).”

“…water maze and other spatial tasks has been associated with low testosterone levels in males, but higher testosterone levels in females, in some studies (Gouchie and Kimura, 1991; Moffat and Hampson, 1996; Puts et al., 2007; Nowak et al., 2014; but see Driscoll et al., 2005; Burkitt et al., 2007).”

“, 2004), negative (Moffat and Hampson, 1996), and no relationship (Gouchie and Kimura, 1991; Kampen and Sherwin, 1996; Alexander et al., 1998; Halari et al., 2005; Falter et al., 2006; Burkitt et al., 2007).”

“Interestingly, virtual spatial navigation tasks that are analogous to the infamous Morris Water Maze rodent task have been successfully created and utilized to assess hippocampal-dependent spatial learning and memory [35, 36].”

“3 (women) as reported by Burkitt et al. (2007) and those of 15.”

“…and hormonal fluctuations during themenstrual cycle (Epting and Overman, 1998; Gordon and Lee, 1993; Halari et al., 2005; Peters et al., 1995; Puts et al., 2010; Rosenberg and Park, 2002), or between performance in a mental rotation task and testosterone (Burkitt et al., 2007; Puts et al., 2010).”

“Further, testosterone is thought to be one factor that improves spatial navigational performance in males and females (Burkitt et al., 2007; Driscoll et al., 2005; Roof and Havens, 1992).”

“…for studies relating testosterone to such things as mood (van Honk et al., 1999), clothing choice (Grammer et al., 2004), cognitive abilities (Burkitt et al., 2007), sexual activity (van Anders et al., 2007), financial risk-taking (Coates and Herbert, 2008), attraction to masculine faces…”

“Burkitt, Widman, and Saucier (2007) examined the association of testosterone with cognitive function in a sample of 80 males and females (M age = 19.9 years) with a cross-sectional study design.”

“Several investigations also explain the male advantage in spatial tasks via their high levels of testosterone, since testosterone has repeatedly been related to improved spatial performance (Gordon and Lee, 1986; Silverman et al., 1999; Hausmann et al., 2000, 2009; Aleman et al., 2004; Hooven et al., 2004; Discroll et…”

“Moreover, endogenous levels of testosterone in female humans correlates with their navigation performance in virtual water maze tests (Driscoll et al. 2005; Burkitt et al. 2007).”

“Although we are unaware of any previous studies examining the influences of T on this specific measure in any age group, positive associations have been reported in younger women between other measures of spatial cognition and serum levels of T (Aleman et al., 2004; Burkitt et al., 2007; Hausmann et al., 2000).”

“Particularly, testosterone relates positively to performance in mental rotation (e.g. Hooven et al., 2004; Levine et al., 2001; Silverman et al., 1999; Vuoksimaa et al., 2012) (but see Puts et al., 2010) and spatial navigation tasks (Burkitt et al., 2007; Saucier et al., 2002a).”

“Another possibility is related to hormones, specifically testosterone, which seems to play an important role in spatial orientation: lower levels impair women’s performance [40], whereas higher levels are related to better scores in men [12].”

“Commensurate with prior research, we found that men outperformed women on a number of navigation outcomes (Astur et al., 1998; Sandstrom et al., 1998; Driscoll et al., 2005; Burkitt et al., 2007; Nowak and Moffat, 2011).”

“Furthermore, the intake of oral contraceptives [31, 32], as well as measured levels of sex hormones have shown to play a role in spatial memory performance [16, 19, 33-35].”

“As observed in other studies [7,17,32,66], greater accuracy on the MRT was associated with better vMWT performance.”

“A sex difference favoring men in vMWT performance has also been reported (Astur et al., 1998; Astur, Tropp, Sava, Constable, & Markus, 2004; Burkitt, Widman, & Saucier, 2007; Driscoll, Hamilton, Yeo, Brooks, & Sutherland, 2005 ;M ueller et al., 2008; Rahman & Koerting, 2008; Sandstrom, Kaufman, & Huettel, 1998) with s…”

“A growing body of evidence show that sex differences in rodents stem, at least in part, from organizational effects of sex hormones (Burkitt et al., 2007), rearing/housing conditions (Juraska et al.”

“That spatial ability is not fixed but variable is further supported by reports that testosterone levels are positively associated with the use of male-biased route-learning strategies and improved virtual maze and MR performance in men (Choi and Silverman 2002; Driscoll et al. 2005; Silverman et al. 1999) and women (…”

“In humans, female performance in spatial ability tasks correlates positively with androgen levels and improves with androgen treatments (Aleman et al., 2004; Burkitt et al., 2007; Driscoll et al., 2005).”

“…et al., 2012; Hawley et al., 2013), and humans (Janowsky et al., 1994; Postma et al., 2000; Silverman et al., 1999; Cherrier et al., 2001, 2007; Burkitt et al., 2007) that baseline T is positively correlated with spatial learning and memory (but see Naghdi et al., 2003, 2005; Khorshidahmad et…”

“…but future studies with more appropriate methods and power are needed to clarify the association between hormone fluctuations, including both estrogen (Pletzer and Kerschbaum, 2014; Warren et al., 2014) and testosterone (Burkitt et al., 2007; Roof and Havens, 1992), and spatial navigation ability.”

“Similarly, in healthy adults, women with high endogenous testosterone also completed the virtual maze faster than women with low testosterone levels (Burkitt et al., 2007).”

“Despite evidence that androgens impact cognition and emotional memory, the nature of their influence is unclear (Burkitt et al., 2007; Galea et al., 2008; Gouchie and Kimura, 1991; Janowsky, 2006; Moffat and Hampson, 1996).”

“…(decreased) TST levels are associated with better (worse) cognitive performance that vary with sex, including spatial tasks and memory performance (Burkitt et al. 2007; Kight and McCarthy 2020), though acute, exogenous increases of TST in women by 25-fold in serum reportedly leads to limited…”

“In addition, spatial ability in females is mediated by sex hormones, including estradiol and testosterone (Aleman et al., 2004; Burkitt et al., 2007).”

“Although there is no major difference in performance in current standardized intelligence tests between females and males, there are described sex differences in particular subtypes of the tests [1].”

“Accordingly, low-testosterone women take longer than high-testosterone women to navigate the Virtual Water Maze, a test of spatial performance ( Burkitt et al. 2007 ).”

“Some studies have found significant relationships between found exogenously injected testosterone related variations and performance in male rodents (Burkitt et al., 2007).”