ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2012
Neural sensitivity to sex steroids predicts individual differences in aggression: implications for behavioural evolution.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 65 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
65 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 165 citations in OpenAlex.
- Multivariate Models of Animal Sex: Breaking Binaries Leads to a Better Understanding of Ecology and Evolution.Integrative and comparative biology · 2023Pooled it
- Sex and breeding stage differences in neurogenomic profiles reflect hormone signaling in a socially polyandrous shorebird.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Brain network localization of structural and functional abnormality associated with aggression.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Neurogenomic landscape associated with status-dependent cooperative behaviour.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Repeated behavioural evolution is associated with convergence of gene expression in cavity-nesting songbirds.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Hypothalamic resting-state functional connectivity and self-evaluated aggression in young adults.Journal of psychiatric research · 2025Article
- Estrogen profiling in blood and brain: Effects of season and an aggressive interaction in a songbird.PloS one · 2025Article
- Hypothalamic connectivities and self-evaluated aggression in young adults.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Fetal endocrine axes mRNA expression levels are related to sex and intrauterine position.Biology of sex differences · 2024Article
- Androgen-mediated maternal effects and trade-offs: postnatal hormone development, growth, and survivorship in wild meerkats.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Article
- Sex and seasonal differences in neural steroid sensitivity predict territorial aggression in Siberian hamsters.Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
- Sex-specific endocrine regulation of seasonal aggression in Siberian hamsters.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Bidirectional relationships between testosterone and aggression: a critical analysis of four predictions.Integrative and comparative biology · 2022Article
- Article
- Nuclear androgen and progestin receptors inversely affect aggression and social dominance in male zebrafish (Danio rerio).Hormones and behavior · 2021Article
- Gonadal steroid hormone receptors in the medial amygdala contribute to experience-dependent changes in stress vulnerability.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2021Article
- The ontogeny of personality: Repeatability of social and escape behaviors across developmental stages in Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus).Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2021Article
- MaleRoyal Society open science · 2021Article
- Sexual Dimorphism in Aggression: Sex-Specific Fighting Strategies Across Species.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2021Review
- Inside the supergene of the bird with four sexes.Hormones and behavior · 2020Review
5 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Testosterone (T) regulates many traits related to fitness, including aggression. However, individual variation in aggressiveness does not always relate to circulating T, suggesting that behavioural variation may be more closely related to neural sensitivity to steroids, though this issue remains unresolved. To assess the relative importance of circulating T and neural steroid sensitivity in predicting behaviour, we measured aggressiveness during staged intrusions in free-living male and female dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis). We compared aggressiveness to plasma T levels and to the abundance of androgen receptor (AR), aromatase (AROM) and oestrogen receptor alpha (ORα) mRNA in behaviourally relevant brain areas (avian medial amygdala, hypothalamus and song control regions). We also asked whether patterns of covariation among behaviour and endocrine parameters differed in males and females, anticipating that circulating T may be a better predictor of behaviour in males than in females. We found that circulating T related to aggressiveness only in males, but that gene expression for ORα, AR and AROM covaried with individual differences in aggressiveness in both sexes. These findings are among the first to show that individual variation in neural gene expression for three major sex steroid-processing molecules predicts individual variation in aggressiveness in both sexes in nature. The results have broad implications for our understanding of the mechanisms by which aggressive behaviour may evolve.
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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.