Rapid advances in the neural control of social behavior highlight the role of interconnected nodes engaged in differential information processing to generate behavior. Many innate social behaviors are essential to reproductive fitness and therefore fundamentally different in males and females. Programming these differences occurs early in development in mammals, following gonadal differentiation and copious androgen production by the fetal testis during a critical period. Early-life programming of social behavior and its adult manifestation are separate but yoked processes, yet how they are linked is unknown. This review seeks to highlight that gap by identifying four core mechanisms (epigenetics, cell death, circuit formation, and adult hormonal modulation) that could connect developmental changes to the adult behaviors of mating and aggression. We further propose that a unique social behavior, adolescent play, bridges the preweaning to the postpubertal brain by engaging the same neural networks underpinning adult reproductive and aggressive behaviors.

中文翻译：

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性别二态社会行为的神经控制：将发展与成年联系起来

社会行为神经控制的快速进展凸显了互连节点参与差异信息处理以生成行为的作用。许多先天的社会行为对于生殖健康至关重要，因此男性和女性之间存在根本差异。这些差异的编程发生在哺乳动物发育的早期，在关键时期的性腺分化和胎儿睾丸产生大量雄激素之后。生命早期的社会行为编程及其成年表现是独立但相互关联的过程，但它们之间的联系尚不清楚。本综述旨在通过确定四个核心机制（表观遗传学、细胞死亡、回路形成和成体激素调节）来强调这一差距，这些机制可以将发育变化与成体的交配和攻击行为联系起来。我们进一步提出，一种独特的社会行为，即青少年游戏，通过参与支持成人生殖和攻击行为的相同神经网络，在断奶前和青春期后大脑之间架起桥梁。