Journal
HORMONES AND BEHAVIOR
Volume 41, Issue 2, Pages 139-155Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1006/hbeh.2001.1751
Keywords
estradiol; estrogen; steroid(s); behavior; cognition; motor; Turner syndrome; ovarian dysgenesis; gonadal; hormones; organization
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
To better understand factors contributing to behavioral development, we studied patients with Turner syndrome (TS), a disorder typically marked by prenatal onset of ovarian dysfunction. We compared girls and women (ages 12 and up) with TS (n = 21) to matched controls (n = 21) in cognitive and motor skills, as well as sex-typed personality characteristics and activity preferences. Measures were categorized (based on prior studies) as showing an average male advantage (male-superior measures), female advantage (female-superior measures), or no sex difference (sex-neutral measures). It was hypothesized that, if gonadal function contributes to behavioral development, effects of this deficiency would be more prominent on sexually differentiated than sex-neutral measures and thus that patient-control differences would be most marked for measures that show sex differences. Our findings indicated that TS patients and controls differed more on cognitive and motor domains that show sex differences than on sex-neutral domains. Patients also had more undifferentiated personalities and showed reduced sex-typed interests and activities. Differing experiences, as indexed by interests and activities, did not explain the observed cognitive and motor differences. These results are consistent with a role for ovarian hormones acting on the brain to influence cognitive and behavioral development, although they do not rule out other possible interpretations. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available