HORMONAL INFLUENCES ON HUMAN SEXUALLY-DIMORPHIC BEHAVIOR

本合作项目是对性腺激素的研究 对人类性二态认知和社会行为的影响。 的 目的有四个方面：（a）描绘激素的神经基质 对认知能力，特别是空间能力的影响;（B） 确定负责的特定激素（雄激素或雌激素） （c）检查特定行为的男性典型发展; 行为与实验室动物中研究的行为相似， 发现对早期性腺激素环境敏感，或者 被认为受到了精神上的影响，但并没有被 （d）在人类中充分研究;（d）研究可能的 对后来的认知和社交的早期影响 行为 患者（N = 350）将从多个医疗机构招募 包括三组不同的激素异常， 产生、敏感性或暴露（先天性肾上腺增生， 雄激素不敏感和产前暴露于己烯雌酚）。 性- 年龄匹配的兄弟姐妹和堂兄弟姐妹将被招募作为对照 （N = 350）。 两个年龄范围（2-6岁和12岁及以上）的受试者将接受 测试（a）与特定皮层区域相关的各种任务，或 神经组织的不同模式，和/或（B）行为 在人类中表现为性二态性，或在其他 哺乳动物和研究不足，关于激素的影响，在人类 生物。 要检查的行为包括玩耍行为（打闹 游戏和玩具偏好），认知能力（语言，空间， 数学和推理能力），大脑半球专业化 (for语言和音乐处理），幼儿活动，以及 人格 本研究的结果将提供以下信息： 荷尔蒙对特定行为的发展的影响， 与社会和教育相关。 他们还将提供有关 动物模型与理解人类行为的相关性 关系。

This collaborative project is an investigation of gonadal hormone influences on human sexually-dimorphic cognitive and social behavior. The aims are four-fold: (a) to delineate the neural substrate of hormonal influences on cognitive abilities, especially spatial ability; (b) to determine the specific hormone (androgen or estrogen) responsible for masculine-typical development of particular behaviors; (c) to examine behaviors which are similar to those studied in laboratory animals and found to be sensitive to the early gonadal hormone environment, or which have been suggested to be hormonally influenced but have not been adequately studied in human beings; (d) to study possible hormonally-influenced early antecedents of later cognitive and social behavior. Patients (N = 350) will be recruited from several medical centers and include three groups with different abnormalities of hormone production, sensitivity, or exposure (congenital adrenal hyperplasia, androgen insensitivity, and prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol). Sex- and age-matched siblings and cousins will be recruited as controls (N = 350). Subjects in two age ranges (2-6 and 12 and older) will be tested on (a) a variety of tasks related to specific cortical areas or different patterns of neurological organization, and/or (b) on behaviors shown to be sexually-dimorphic in humans, or hormonally-influenced in other mammals and poorly studied with regard to hormonal influences in human beings. Behaviors to be examined include play behavior (rough-and-tumble play and toy preferences), cognitive abilities (verbal, spatial, mathematical, and reasoning abilities), cerebral hemispheric specialization (for verbal and music processing), early childhood activities, and personality. Results from this study will provide information about hormonal influences on the development of specific behaviors that are both socially and educationally relevant. They will also provide information on the relevance of animal models for understanding human hormone-behavior relationships.