Review
Prenatal sex hormone effects on child and adult sex-typed behavior: methods and findings

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2004.11.004Get rights and content

Abstract

There is now good evidence that human sex-typed behavior is influenced by sex hormones that are present during prenatal development, confirming studies in other mammalian species. Most of the evidence comes from clinical populations, in which prenatal hormone exposure is atypical for a person's sex, but there is increasing evidence from the normal population for the importance of prenatal hormones. In this paper, we briefly review the evidence, focusing attention on the methods used to study behavioral effects of prenatal hormones. We discuss the promises and pitfalls of various types of studies, including those using clinical populations (concentrating on those most commonly studied, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, androgen insensitivity syndrome, ablatio penis, and cloacal exstrophy), direct measures of hormones in the general population (assayed through umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, and maternal serum during pregnancy), and indirect measures of hormones in the general population (inferred from intrauterine position and biomarkers such as otoacoustic emissions, finger length ratios, and dermatoglyphic asymmetries). We conclude with suggestions for interpreting and conducting studies of the behavioral effects of prenatal hormones.

Section snippets

General considerations and caveats

Before moving to the specific methods, we highlight a number of theoretical and methodological issues relevant to evaluating all studies of human hormoneā€“behavior relations.

Studies in clinical populations

The early studies in animals showing behavioral effects of early hormones prompted studies of people with atypical hormone exposure, i.e. in which the sex hormones are higher or lower than expected for a person's sex [63]. Early studies involving such ā€˜experiments of natureā€™ suggested an important role for sex hormones, confirming studies in other species, but they were criticized for methodological limitations, especially subjective measures and insufficient controls. Recent studies with

Studies in typical populations

Clinical populations have provided valuable information about hormonal contributors to behavior, but they are not perfect experiments (because of the methodological limitations and concerns about generalizability described above) and they are also difficult to study (because of their relatively low frequency and the sampling problems described above). There has thus been an increased interest in developing alternative ways to study behavioral effects of prenatal hormones, particularly within

Background

Most evidence for behavioral and physiological effects of early hormones comes from nonhuman studies in which hormones are directly manipulated. Interestingly, however, there is good evidence that behavior and physiology are influenced by naturally occurring variations in hormones that result from an animal's position in the uterus, particularly the sex of its littermates (intrauterine position, IUP) [[17], [171], [172]]. Female rodents that developed between male fetuses in utero are less

Studies in typical populations: biological markers as indirect indicators of prenatal hormones

Three relatively new methods for investigating behavioral effects of prenatal exposure to sex hormones involve use of morphological indices, specifically otoacoustic emissions (reflecting auditory function), finger ratio (the relative lengths of the index and ring fingers), and dermatoglyphics (fingerprints). These markers are assumed to reflect prenatal exposure to sex hormones, and are examined in relation to postnatal behavior, with associations between these markers and behavior taken to

Summary and conclusions

As is apparent, there is a lot of interest and work dedicated to understanding the human behavioral consequences of prenatal exposure to sex hormones. Although there is still work to be done, there is increasing convergence of evidence across methods showing the masculinizing effects of prenatal androgens, especially at high doses of androgens and especially for sex-typed interests, spatial ability, and aspects of personality. Thus, it seems likely that androgens are responsible for some of the

Acknowledgements

We thank Carolina de Weerth for inviting us to write this paper and for her help during its preparation, Catherine Bakey for her help with the literature on dermatoglyphic asymmetry, and the editors and anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We also acknowledge grants that supported the preparation of this chapter and our own research reported here: Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) grants 575-25-011

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