Working in Movement

Yesterday's post focused on an article on Antonio DaMasio's ideas on the some of the implications of the differences in speeds of cognitive and emotional components of the nervous system. The cognitive system's pattern handling capability turns out to be quite speedy, while the emotional system's is much slower. There is a definite influence on the development of social skills, among other things.

Too much testosterone blights social skills in the New Scientist takes a look at social development from a different perspective. It reports on a study investigating testosterone and social development in babies and toddlers. The study has followed 58 children born in 1996 or 1997. The researchers first measured the levels of testosterone in the amniotic fluid in the womb of the kids mothers while they were pregnant, making the assumption that this reflects the level of the hormone in the babies themselves. Then the babies were tested for social development at various ages. At age one, the researchers found "that the babies with higher fetal testosterone levels had a smaller vocabulary and made eye contact less often."

These observations are in line with a theory that "high fetal testosterone levels push brain development towards an improved ability to see patterns and analyse systems tasks males tend to be better at. But it also impairs communication and empathy which are usually more highly developed in females (New Scientist, 24 May 2003)."

For the latest phase of the study, researchers looked at the kids as four-year-olds. Based on the answers given by mother's questionnaires on their child's interests and social development, the research suggests children with higher testosterone in the womb are less developed socially, and the interests of boys are more restricted than girls. The team will report their findings in theJournal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

This is a pretty small sample, and even the researchers say the study may not be all that conclusive. But they are designing a new study with a larger sample that will also investigate a possible link between testosterone levels and autism.

For a less serious (and decidedly nonscientific) look at testosterone and social skills, listen to the April 30, 2004 edition of public radio's This American Life. (You'll need the RealAudio player to listen.) Ira Glass and crew talk to a man who had experienced the absence of testosterone and then with a woman who had experienced an abnormally high level. The woman later changed sides by undergoing sex change surgery.) Glass and his staff then speculate on each other's testosterone levels and then back it up by scientific testing.