Pubertal hormones not responsible for changes in social behavior during adolescence





His new model, explained in the study with co-authors Clemens Probst, a scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Geert de Vries, a professor at Georgia State University, and Lauren Brown, a UB graduate student, provides a basic understanding that did not previously exist for what drives adolescent social development.

Adolescence is a critical period of development for individuals, notes Paul.

Complex thinking develops; many mental health disorders arise; and it is associated with the beginning of high-risk behaviors, like drug use. For social behavior, it is a time when the focus of children's social relationships shifts from the family to peers. In other words, they stop wanting to hang out with mom and dad. It has been widely assumed that these changes can be attributed to increases in gonadal hormones at puberty.

"What we've done here is find a new way to ask the question of how puberty plays a role in adolescent development - a new way to determine which developmental changes pubertal hormones trigger and which changes they do not."





Using a seasonal breeding species, like Siberian hamsters, Paul is able to control the timing of puberty.


Controlling the amount of light a hamster receives in the lab delays arrival of puberty, which comes around 30 days of age for "long-day" hamsters and around 100 days of age or later for "short-day" hamsters.

With two groups going through puberty at different times, Paul can now observe behavioral changes in each group to determine whether these changes are always locked to puberty. In this study, they looked at the transition from play-fighting to social dominance, which is an important step for these young animals to be able to leave home and find their own territory (also called dispersal).

"Play is an important behavior in many species, especially mammals," says Paul. "It's evolutionarily conserved, meaning it hasn't been lost from a common ancestor as species broke off from each other in the evolutionary tree. Because play is expressed in so many species, it's likely to be serving an important function, including in humans. It also suggests that what we learn from our hamsters will likely be true for many other species."


"This is a surprising finding, because we tend to think that pubertal hormones are responsible for the changes we see during adolescence. But our research suggests otherwise." says Paul. "These findings are also important for adolescent mental health - understanding the underlying mechanisms responsible for adolescent development will provide insight into why so many mental health disorders arise during this time in life."


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