Titel
Digit ratio (2D:4D) in Lithuania once and now: Testing for sex differences, relations with eye and hair color, and a possible secular change
Autor*in
Albinas Bagdonas
Vilnius University (VU)
Abstract
The second-to-fourth digit ratio (2D:AD) is a sexually dimorphic somatic trait and has been proposed as a biomarker for the organizational, i.e., permanent, effects of prenatal testosterone on the human brain. Accordingly, recent research has related 2DAD to a variety of sex-dependent, hormonally influenced traits and phenotypes. The geographical variation in typical 2DAD is marked and presently poorly understood. This study presents the first investigation into the 2DAD ratio in a Baltic country. A contemporary sample of 109 Lithuanian men and women was compared with data from a historical sample of 100 Lithuanian men and women, collected and published in the 1880s and rediscovered only now. The findings included the following lines of evidence: (i) seen in an international perspective, the average 2DAD in Lithuania is low; (ii) there was a sex difference in 2DAD in the expected direction in both samples; (iii) a previously adduced hypothesis of an association of lighter eye and hair color with higher, i.e., more feminized, 2DAD received no support in both samples; and (iv) the average 2DAD in the contemporary sample was higher than in the historical sample. In view of a hypothesized increase in 2DAD in modern populations, owing to increased environmental levels of endocrine disruptors such as xenoestrogens, this latter finding appears to be of particular notice. However, because finger-length measurement methods differed across the samples, it cannot be safely ruled out that the apparent time trend in Lithuanian 2DAD in truth is an artifact. The puzzling geographical pattern seen in the 2DAD ratio and the question of possible time trends therein deserve further investigations.
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:244252
Erschienen in
Titel
Collegium Antropologicum
Ausgabe
31
Seitenanfang
863
Seitenende
868
Erscheinungsdatum
01.01.2007
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