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 This month's Nature Neuroscience presents a focus on the sexual brain. This special issue examines sexual development and brain differentiation. It also discusses the brain circuits behind pair bonding and sex-associated social behavior. The authors explore development from neural pathways to behavioral development. There is an interesting discussion of how the masculinizing hormone testosterone promotes male behavior and brain structural development by altering cell survival and synaptogenesis. The authors explore how complex human behaviors, including sexual orientation, might develop through the actions of prenatal hormones.
There is also a discussion of how sex enhances pair bonding through a pathway that involves reward centers in the brain, leading to the idea that the formation of a strong social bond is not unlike an addiction.
An accompanying commentary raises ethical issues that must be considered when studying such a complex (and controversial) topic as human sexuality. It points out that this is a timely review of sexuality since 'conservative members of the US Congress and continuing their battle to limit federal funding of research into human sexual behavior.'
Nature Neuroscience 7, 1029 (2004)
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