ArticleHuman nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)2011
Adrenarche and middle childhood.
Article in Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.), 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 62 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adrenarche, social cognition, and the development and evolution of autism spectrum traits.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Examining androgen and estrogen profiles during pubertal development in autistic and neurotypical girls.Hormones and behavior · 2025Article
- The association between the duration and degree of adiposity and appetitive trait trajectory profiles from childhood into early adolescence - results from the Generation XXI cohort.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2025Article
- Interparental violence: child emotional awareness, protective factors, and symptom profiles in a comparative analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Do Cortisol and Dehydroepiandrosterone Influence Motivational Factors for Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Female Adolescents?Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- Longitudinal associations between paternal mental health and child behavior and cognition in middle childhood.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Epigenetic regulation of 5α reductase-1 underlies adaptive plasticity of reproductive function and pubertal timing.BMC biology · 2022Article
- Normal and Premature Adrenarche.Endocrine reviews · 2021Review
- Human-like adrenal development in wild chimpanzees: A longitudinal study of urinary dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate and cortisol.American journal of primatology · 2020Article
- Update on adrenarche.Current opinion in pediatrics · 2020Review
- DHEAS and Human Development: An Evolutionary Perspective.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2020Article
- Sex-specific contribution of DHEA-cortisol ratio to prefrontal-hippocampal structural development, cognitive abilities and personality traits.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2019Article
- Role of DHEA and cortisol in prefrontal-amygdalar development and working memory.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2018Article
- Coalitional Physical Competition : Acute Salivary Steroid Hormone Responses among Juvenile Male Soccer Players in Hong Kong.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2018Article
- Individual differences in developmental plasticity: A role for early androgens?Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2018Review
- Dehydroepiandrosterone impacts working memory by shaping cortico-hippocampal structural covariance during development.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2017Article
- The developmental relationship between DHEA and visual attention is mediated by structural plasticity of cortico-amygdalar networks.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2016Article
- Childhood environment influences adrenarcheal timing among first-generation Bangladeshi migrant girls to the UK.PloS one · 2014Article
- Study protocol: the Childhood to Adolescence Transition Study (CATS).BMC pediatrics · 2013Article
- Interactive effects of dehydroepiandrosterone and testosterone on cortical thickness during early brain development.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2013Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Middle childhood, the period from 6 to 12 years of age, is defined socially by increasing autonomy and emotional regulation, somatically by the development of anatomical structures for subsistence, and endocrinologically by adrenarche, the adrenal production of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Here I suggest that DHEA plays a key role in the coordinated development of the brain and body beginning with middle childhood, via energetic allocation. I argue that with adrenarche, increasing levels of circulating DHEA act to down-regulate the release of glucose into circulation and hence limit the supply of glucose which is needed by the brain for synaptogenesis. Furthermore, I suggest the antioxidant properties of DHEA may be important in maintaining synaptic plasticity throughout middle childhood within slow-developing areas of the cortex, including the insula, thamalus, and anterior cingulate cortex. In addition, DHEA may play a role in the development of body odor as a reliable social signal of behavioral changes associated with middle childhood.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.