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Research ArticleHistory of Neuroscience, History, Teaching, and Public Awareness

Steinach and Young, Discoverers of the Effects of Estrogen on Male Sexual Behavior and the “Male Brain”

Per Södersten
eNeuro 1 November 2015, 2 (6) ENEURO.0058-15.2015; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0058-15.2015
Per Södersten
Section of Applied Neuroendocrinology, Karolinska Institutet, S-141 04 Huddinge, Sweden
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Abstract

In the 1930s, Eugen Steinach’s group found that estradiol induces lordosis in castrated rats and reduces the threshold dose of testosterone that is necessary for the induction of ejaculation, and that estradiol-treated intact rats display lordosis as well as mounting and ejaculation. The bisexual, estrogen-sensitive male had been demonstrated. Another major, albeit contrasting, discovery was made in the 1950s, when William Young’s group reported that male guinea pigs and prenatally testosterone-treated female guinea pigs are relatively insensitive to estrogen when tested for lordosis as adults. Reduced estrogen sensitivity was part of the new concept of organization of the neural tissues mediating the sexual behavior of females into tissues similar to those of males. The importance of neural organization by early androgen stimulation was realized immediately and led to the discovery of a variety of sex differences in the brains of adult animals. By contrast, the importance of the metabolism of testosterone into estrogen in the male was recognized only after a delay. While the finding that males are sensitive to estrogen was based on Bernhard Zondek’s discovery in 1934 that testosterone is metabolized into estrogen in males, the finding that males are insensitive to estrogen was based on the hypothesis that testosterone–male sexual behavior is the typical relationship in the male. It is suggested that this difference in theoretical framework explains the discrepancies in some of the reported results.

  • Estrogen
  • history
  • male brain
  • sex behavior
  • sex differences

Footnotes

  • ↵1 The author declares no competing financial interests.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.

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Steinach and Young, Discoverers of the Effects of Estrogen on Male Sexual Behavior and the “Male Brain”
Per Södersten
eNeuro 1 November 2015, 2 (6) ENEURO.0058-15.2015; DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0058-15.2015

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Steinach and Young, Discoverers of the Effects of Estrogen on Male Sexual Behavior and the “Male Brain”
Per Södersten
eNeuro 1 November 2015, 2 (6) ENEURO.0058-15.2015; DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0058-15.2015
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Significance Statement
    • Introduction
    • Discovery of the Effects of Estrogen in Male Rats
    • The Estrogen-Insensitive Male
    • The Era of Activation and Organization
    • Review of Phoenix et al. (1959)
    • Discussion
    • Estrogen, Sex and Internal Secretions, and the Nobel Prize
    • The Elusive Search for the Male Brain
    • Concluding Remarks
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
    • Synthesis
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
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Keywords

  • estrogen
  • History
  • Male brain
  • Sex behavior
  • sex differences

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