Effects of testosterone propionate upon the sexual and aggressive behavior of adult male marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) castrated as neonates.

In New World monkeys of the family Callitrichidae (marmosets and tamarins), females frequently give birth to dizygotic twins. Twins share a placental circulation throughout fetal development and are hemopoietic chimeras. Despite this, there is no masculinization (freemartinism) in females which develop next to a male co-twin. It has been suggested that the organizing effects of testicular androgen upon sexual differentiation of the brain occur mainly during early postnatal development in male callitrichids, rather than in utero. However, this report demonstrates activation of masculine copulatory behavior by testosterone propionate (TP) administered to adult male marmosets (N = 8) which were castrated in infancy (between Days 1-7). Effects of neonatal castration upon aggressive behavior during pair tests with females (high frequencies of aggression) and intact adult males (low frequencies of aggression) were also reversed by TP treatment in adulthood. While early postnatal androgen secretion plays an important role in behavioral development in marmosets, it appears that a substantial degree of neural sexual differentiation occurs in utero in males of this callitrichid species.