Prenatal testosterone exposure is related to sexually dimorphic facial morphology in adulthood
Access Status
Authors
Date
2015Type
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Source Title
ISSN
School
Collection
Abstract
© 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Prenatal testosterone may have a powerful masculinizing effect on postnatal physical characteristics. However, no study has directly tested this hypothesis. Here, we report a 20-year follow-up study that measured testosterone concentrations from the umbilical cord blood of 97 male and 86 female newborns, and procured three-dimensional facial images on these participants in adulthood (range: 21-24 years). Twenty-three Euclidean and geodesic distances were measured from the facial images and an algorithm identified a set of six distances that most effectively distinguished adult males from females. From these distances, a 'gender score' was calculated for each face, indicating the degree of masculinity or femininity. Higher cord testosterone levels were associated with masculinized facial features when males and females were analysed together (n = 183; r = —0.59), as well as when males (n = 86; r = —0.55) and females (n = 97; r = —0.48) were examined separately (p-values < 0.001). The relationships remained significant and substantial after adjusting for potentially confounding variables. Adult circulating testosterone concentrations were available for males but showed no statistically significant relationship with gendered facial morphology (n = 85, r = 0.01, p = 0.93). This study provides the first direct evidence of a link between prenatal testosterone exposure and human facial structure.
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Gilani, S.; Tan, D.; Russell-Smith, S.; Maybery, M.; Mian, A.; Eastwood, Peter; Shafait, F.; Goonewardene, M.; Whitehouse, A. (2015)© 2015 Gilani et al.; licensee BioMed Central. Background: In a recent study, Bejerot et al. observed that several physical features (including faces) of individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were more ...
-
Hollier, Lauren; Keelan, J.; Jamnadass, E.; Maybery, M.; Hickey, M.; Whitehouse, A. (2015)Background: Ratio of second digit length to fourth digit length (2D:4D) has been extensively used in human and experimental research as a marker of fetal sex steroid exposure. However, very few human studies have measured ...
-
Wahjoepramono, E.; Asih, P.; Aniwiyanti, V.; Taddei, K.; Dhaliwal, S.; Fuller, S.; Foster, J.; Carruthers, M.; Verdile, Giuseppe; Sohrabi, H.; Martins, R. (2016)Reduction in testosterone levels in men during aging is associated with cognitive decline and risk of dementia. Animal studies have shown benefits for testosterone supplementation in improving cognition and reducing ...