1386 



HORMONAL REGULATION OF BEHAVIOR 



androgen is one that stimulates comb growth 

 in the capon, or prostatic and seminal vesi- 

 cle secretion in the castrate or immature rat. 

 Similarly, estrogen induces changes in the 

 vaginal epithelium in adult spayed mice or 

 maturation of the uterus in juvenile mice. 

 Gestagens induce the appropriate gesta- 

 tional changes in the endometrium of the 

 uterus. It does not follow that a specified 

 biologically active compound will be equally 

 potent in its stimulating effect on all sec- 

 ondary sexual characteristics. For example, 

 in hypopituitary, eunuchoid youths testos- 

 terone induces a fair degree of virilization, 

 except for growth of the beard, although in 

 castrated boys the effect of testosterone on 

 beard growth is excellent. Within a species, 

 some individuals are more sensitive, some 

 more resistant to a prescribed amount of 

 hormone. Within an individual, some target 

 organs are more sensitive or more resistant 

 than others. Examples of such variations 

 are mentioned from time to time in the en- 

 suing text. Because of such variations, there 

 is the possibility that an otherwise biologi- 

 cally active synthetic hormone may fail or 

 partially fail to evoke signs of eroticism, or 

 that it may evoke seemingly incongruous 

 effects. 



III. Morphologic and Behavioral 

 Maturation 



Androgens are specific for bringing about 

 adult growth of the genital tract in males. 

 Estrogens are similarly specific for females. 

 Further, androgens are antagonistic to femi- 

 nized genital maturation in females, the 

 classic example being virilizing hyperad- 

 renocorticism in girls.'* These girls, her- 

 maphroditic if born with their adrenal dys- 

 function, have a precocious and exclusively 

 virilizing puberty. Their ovaries fail to ma- 

 ture and the clitoris becomes hypertrophied 

 to resemble a penis in size. Estrogens are 

 antagonistic to virilized genital maturation 

 in males. They inhibit androgen production 

 in the testes and thus simulate castration. 

 Simultaneously, they stimulate enlargement 

 of the breasts. 



Hormonal failure of the gonads, whether 

 through castration or hypofunction of the 



* These actions of androgens and estrogens are 

 described and discussed fully in the chapter by 

 Burns. 



gonadal endocrine cells, results in persist- 

 ence of infantile sexual and body morphol- 

 ogy. Patients who reach the middle teen- 

 age, or beyond, with sex hormone failure 

 untreated, demonstrate how far-reaching is 

 the morphologic function of the sex hor- 

 mones. 



Teen-agers with morphologically prepu- 

 bertal bodies are invariably identified by 

 strangers as younger than their age. Old 

 friends, family, and social intimates fall 

 with perilous ease into the custom of treat- 

 ing them as preadolescent juveniles. It is 

 difficult for them to remain persona grata 

 with their age-mates. The boys are worse 

 off than the girls, for it is more feasible for 

 a girl with facial make-up and built-in 

 "falsies" to disguise some of the stigmata of 

 sexual infantilism than it is for a beardless, 

 high-voiced boy. Many girls as well as boys, 

 however, fall by the wayside, physically too 

 immature for their own age group, yet so- 

 cially too mature for younger children of 

 similar physique. Among the 10 girls and 

 11 boys of Table 22.1 who were over 16 and 

 still physically unmatured, only 1 girl and 1 

 boy had a history of a teen-age social and 

 dating life that approached the norm for 

 their group. 



When a teen-ager with sex-hormonal 

 failure is responded to as a juvenile from all 

 quarters, the chances are very great that he 

 or she will respond as a juvenile and lag be- 

 hind in psychologic and behavioral develop- 

 ment as he or she gets older.^ The longer this 

 lag persists, the more difficult becomes the 

 problem of social and psychologic adjust- 

 ment as a maturing and mature adult, after 

 hormonal substitution therapy has been in- 

 stituted.*' Adolescent psychologic growth 

 cannot be properly achieved in the absence 

 of adolescent physical growth, but it also 

 cannot be properly achieved in the absence 

 of age-mates who are also in the adolescent 

 growth phase. The early teen-years appear 



^ This lag is seen even more acutely in dwarfed 

 children whose size belies their age. The converse, 

 an acceleration of psychologic and behavioral de- 

 velopment, is possible in children with precocious 

 physical and sexual maturation. 



" The same kind of adjustment problem has been 

 seen almost without exception in the post-teen-age 

 women with virilized hyperadrenocortical her- 

 maphroditism, after they have begun to feminize 

 in body morphology following institution of corti- 

 sone therapy. 



