background: the present study was conducted in order to evaluate the effects of bilateral uterine artery ligation (bual) on the ovarian follicular fate, and alterations in carbohydrate, lipid, lipase and serum levels of f9sh, lh, prolactin, estrogen and progesterone. methods: twenty-four mature female rabbits divided into two test and control-sham groups. the animals underwent ovariohystrectomy...

Three experiments were conducted to test whether testicular hormones secreted during puberty masculinize and defeminize the expression of adult reproductive behavior. Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that gonadal hormones during puberty masculinize behavioral responses to testosterone (T) in adulthood. Male hamsters were castrated either before puberty (noTduringP) or after puberty (TduringP)...

Steroid hormones have a large number of functions in the organism, including the regulation of stress response, the electrolytic balance, and reproduction. The synthesis of these hormones is mediated by a series of enzymes, which produce glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, progestins, androgens and estrogens using cholesterol as the metabolic main precursor. In this general way, steroid synthe...

During embryonic development, gonadal steroid hormones (androgens and estrogens) are thought to organize the sexual differentiation of the brain in the heterogametic sexes of higher vertebrates (males in mammals, females in birds). Brain differentiation of the homogametic sexes is thought to proceed by default, not requiring sex hormones for sex-specific organization. In gallinaceous birds such...

Phoenix, Goy, Gerall, and Young first proposed in 1959 the organizational-activational hypothesis of hormone-driven sex differences in brain and behavior. The original hypothesis posited that exposure to steroid hormones early in development masculinizes and defeminizes neural circuits, programming behavioral responses to hormones in adulthood. This hypothesis has inspired a multitude of experi...

Sex steroid hormones released from the gonads play an important role in mediating social behavior across all vertebrates. Many effects of these gonadal hormones are mediated by nuclear steroid hormone receptors, which are crucial for integration in the brain of external (e.g., social) signals with internal physiological cues to produce an appropriate behavioral output. The African cichlid fish ...