Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
Endocrinology. 2020 Jul 1;161(7). doi: 10.1210/endocr/bqaa064.
Gestural communication is ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom, occurring in species that range from humans to arthropods. Individuals produce gestural signals when their nervous system triggers the production of limb and body movement, which in turn functions to help mediate communication between or among individuals. Like many stereotyped motor patterns, the probability of a gestural display in a given social context can be modulated by sex steroid hormones. Here, we review how steroid hormones mediate the neural mechanisms that underly gestural communication in humans and nonhumans alike. This is a growing area of research, and thus we explore how sex steroids mediate brain areas involved in language production, social behavior, and motor performance. We also examine the way that sex steroids can regulate behavioral output by acting in the periphery via skeletal muscle. Altogether, we outline a new avenue of behavioral endocrinology research that aims to uncover the hormonal basis for one of the most common modes of communication among animals on Earth.
手势交流在动物王国中无处不在，从人类到节肢动物等各种物种都存在这种交流方式。当个体的神经系统触发肢体和身体运动的产生时，就会产生手势信号，而这些运动反过来又有助于促进个体之间或群体之间的沟通。像许多刻板的运动模式一样，在特定的社交环境中做出手势的可能性可以通过性类固醇激素来调节。在这里，我们回顾了类固醇激素如何调节人类和非人类动物手势交流背后的神经机制。这是一个不断发展的研究领域，因此我们探讨了性类固醇激素如何通过作用于语言产生、社会行为和运动表现等相关脑区来调节大脑机制。我们还研究了性类固醇激素如何通过作用于外周的骨骼肌来调节行为输出。总之，我们概述了行为内分泌学研究的一个新途径，旨在揭示动物界最常见的沟通方式之一的激素基础。
