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While prenatal sex hormones guide the development of sex-typical reproductive structures, they also act on the developing brain, resulting in sex differences in brain and behavior in animal models. Stemming from this literature is the prominent hypothesis that prenatal neuroendocrine factors underlie sex differences in human sexual orientation, to explain why most males have a preference for female sexual partners (gynephilia), whereas most females display a preference for male sexual partners (androphilia). Convergent evidence from experiments of nature and indirect markers of prenatal hormones strongly support a role for prenatal androgens in same-same sexual orientations in women, although this finding is specific to a subset of lesbians who are also gender nonconforming (“butch”). More gender-conforming lesbians (“femmes”) do not show evidence of increased prenatal androgens. The literature has been more mixed for male sexual orientation: some report evidence of low prenatal androgen exposure, while others report evidence of high androgen levels and many other studies find no support for a role of prenatal androgen exposure in the development of androphilia in males. Recent evidence suggests there may be subgroups of gay men who owe their sexual orientation to distinct biodevelopmental mechanisms, which could account for these mixed findings. Although this research is young, it is similar to findings from lesbian populations, because gay men who are more gender nonconforming, and report a preference for receptive anal sex, differ on markers of prenatal development from gay men who are more gender conforming and report a preference for insertive anal sex. This chapter concludes with future research avenues including assessing whether multiple biodevelopmental pathways underlie sexual orientation and whether neuroendocrine factors and other biological mechanisms (e.g., immunology, genetics) interact to promote a same-sex sexual orientation.

Chemoreception is the physiological capacity whereby organisms detect the varied external and internal chemical information required for survival and is the most primitive sensory process. Fish living in water have respiratory, gustatory, and olfactory chemosensory systems that detect water-soluble chemical cues. Respiratory chemoreception mainly in the gills detects changes in the levels of three respiratory gases: oxygen (O2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and ammonia (NH3). Gustatory chemoreception (gustation), which involves several taste receptor genes, is primarily involved in the tasting of foods. Olfactory chemoreception (olfaction), which involves between 15 and 150 olfactory receptor genes, is involved in a variety of important biological functions such as procuring foods, recognizing hazards (predators, contaminants, and toxic and alarm substances), discriminating species (individual, kin, and conspecific), controlling social behavior (dominance hierarchies, symbiotic behavior, territorial behavior, and schooling behavior), and reproductive and migratory behavior (mating, search for spawning site, imprinting, and homing). The olfactory functions are primarily controlled by hormones secreted from various endocrine glands that are the key mediators and integrators of external and internal information in organisms. Conversely, olfactory stimuli cause changes in hormone conditions. One good example is the amazing olfactory abilities of salmon. They can memorize information related to their natal stream odors during downstream migration in juveniles so that, after they travel thousands of kilometers in the ocean over many years during feeding migration, they are able to use their homing abilities to migrate precisely to their natal stream for reproduction in adults. Olfactory memory formation and retrieval of natal stream odors in salmon, which are primarily controlled by the brain–pituitary–thyroid hormones and brain–pituitary–gonad hormones, respectively, are essential to imprinting and homing migration. Salmon olfactory systems can discriminate seasonally and yearly stable compositions of dissolved amino acids in their natal streams produced by biofilms in the riverbed. Ocean and freshwater ecosystems may have been affected by climate change-related CO2-induced acidification that impairs olfactory-mediated neural and behavioral responses in fish.

Animals produce communication signals to attract mates and deter rivals during their breeding season. The coincidence in timing results from the modulation of signaling behavior and neural activity by sex steroid hormones associated with reproduction. Adrenal steroids can influence signaling for aggressive interactions outside the breeding season. Androgenic and estrogenic hormones act on brain circuits that regulate the motivation to produce and respond to signals, the motor production of signals, and the sensory perception of signals. Signal perception, in turn, can stimulate gonadal development.