Steroid hormones play a mediating role in brain development and may influence behaviors that show sex differences, such as childhood play behavior.
Sexually dimorphic brain development and behavior are influenced by steroid hormones in the prenatal and early postnatal periods (Arai et al. 1996; Davis et al. 1996; reviewed by Cohen-Bendahan et al. 2005; Dickerson and Gore 2007); thus, assessing the effects of early-life soy exposures on these end points is of great interest.
Estrogens have important roles in brain development and neuronal differentiation by influencing cell migration, survival and death (Beyer 1999; Garcia-Segura 2008).
These genes may act indirectly (for example through influencing gonadal hormone secretion), or directly, to influence brain development and function.
In turn, these peculiar experiences, that may be different from those encountered by typically developing children, could influence their brain development and induce compensatory systems that may alter both morphological volumes and regional activation.
This will further increase our insight in the mechanisms by which they influence brain development, and how they can lead to neuropsychiatric disorders when functionally impaired.
Though much further study is need, both lines of work suggest the presence of epigenetic paternally transmitted factors in both mice and humans that can influence brain development and global levels of gene expression regulation.
Several mutations or allelic variants, that can influence brain development and behaviour, have been found in autism.
Morbidities associated with prematurity such as retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) and sepsis may also influence brain development, and are therefore often used to predict short-term ND outcome.
Adverse early life experiences, e.g. poor maternal care, negatively influence brain development and programs an abnormal stress response by encoding long-lasting molecular changes, which may extend to the next generation.
