Endocrine Abstracts

During development, surges in testosterone (T) organize the bipotential anlage of the periphery into the male phenotype. The same T surges also act on the preoptic area (POA) and hypothalamus of the brain to prevent the expression of female sex behavior and promote male behavior in adulthood so that the behavioral and anatomical phenotypes match. In the rodent, T actually serves as a prohormone. Once in the brain, T is aromatized to the quintessential female hormone estradiol ...