[Source: Science Daily]

“Changes in social behavior during adolescence appear to be independent of pubertal hormones. They are not triggered by puberty, so we can’t blame the hormones,” says Matthew Paul, an assistant professor in UB’s Department of Psychology and lead author of the groundbreaking paper recently published in the journal Current Biology.

Disentangling the adolescent changes that are triggered by puberty from those unrelated to puberty is difficult because puberty and adolescence occur simultaneously, but Paul and his collaborators have found a way to tease out the two using a seasonal-breeding animal model.

“Puberty and adolescence are happening at the same time. So if you want to know if one causes the other, one of the elements must be moved. We have no way of doing that in a human, but we have found a way to do it using Siberian hamsters,” says Paul.

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