Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol. 2022 Jan;337(1):88-98. doi: 10.1002/jez.2467. Epub 2021 Apr 30.
Is the brain bipotential or is sex-typical behavior determined during development? Thirty years of research in whiptail lizards transformed the field of behavioral neuroscience to show the brain is indeed bipotential, producing behaviors along a spectrum of male-typical and female-typical behavior via a parliamentary system of neural networks and not a predetermined program of constrained behavioral output. The unusual clade of whiptail lizards gave these insights as there are several parthenogenetic all-female species that display both male-typical and female-typical sexual behavior. These descendant species exist alongside their ancestors, allowing a unique perspective into how brain-behavior relationships evolve. In this review, we celebrate the over 40-year career of David Crews, beginning with the story of how he established whiptails as a model system through serendipitous behavioral observations and ending with advice to young scientists formulating their own questions. In between these personal notes, we discuss the discoveries that integrated hormones, neural activity, and gene expression to provide transformative insights into how brains function and reshaped our understanding of sexuality.
大脑是双潜能的，还是性别典型行为在发育过程中决定的？30 年来，对鞭尾蜥的研究改变了行为神经科学领域，表明大脑确实具有双潜能，通过神经网络的议会制度产生一系列雄性典型和雌性典型的行为，而不是预先确定的受限行为输出方案。鞭尾蜥这一不寻常的分支为我们提供了这些见解，因为有几个孤雌生殖的全雌性物种表现出雄性典型和雌性典型的性行为。这些后代物种与它们的祖先并存，使我们能够从独特的角度了解大脑-行为关系是如何进化的。在这篇综述中，我们庆祝了大卫·克鲁斯超过 40 年的职业生涯，从他如何通过偶然的行为观察将鞭尾蜥确立为一个模型系统开始，最后以给正在制定自己问题的年轻科学家的建议结束。在这些个人笔记之间，我们讨论了那些将激素、神经活动和基因表达整合在一起的发现，这些发现为大脑如何运作提供了变革性的见解，并重塑了我们对性别的理解。
