Abstract
A primary role of steroid hormones during early development is the establishment of morphological sex differences, which provide the foundation for sex differences of behavior. This chapter discusses the influence of prenatal exposure to steroid hormones on the behavioral development of humans, the process of sexual differentiation, and laboratory animal experiments that provide support for the conclusions of the human studies. Available evidence suggests that exposure to steroid hormones during gestation does affect human behavioral development in a manner generally consistent with that demonstrated experimentally in laboratory animals. It follows, based upon the concordance of evidence between the laboratory animal and human studies of behavioral alteration in response to critical period exposure to steroids, that the human brain is likely to undergo a process of sexual differentiation similar to that of other mammals. Sex differences in human brain morphology have been identified, await only is definitive empirical evidence of the role hormones play in brain differentiation.
View more >>