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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Mar 15.
Published in final edited form as: Eur J Neurosci. 2010 Dec;32(12):2096–2104. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07511.x

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

Estradiol is responsible for both masculinizing and defeminizing the hypothalamus / preoptic area. Estradiol induces a host of molecular and morphological changes in a regionally specific manner. Feminization of the brain is the default program, and prepares the brain for female sexual behavior in adulthood. For abbreviations, see text.