Puberty
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Puberty refers to the process of physical changes by which a child's body becomes an adult body capable of reproduction. Puberty is initiated by hormone signals from the brain to the gonads (the ovaries and testes). In response, the gonads produce a variety of hormones that stimulate the growth, function, or transformation of brain, bones, muscle, skin, breasts, and reproductive organs. Growth accelerates in the first half of puberty and reaches completion by the end. Before puberty, body differences between boys and girls are almost entirely restricted to the genitalia. During puberty major differences of size, shape, composition, and function develop in many body structures and systems. The most obvious of these are referred to as secondary sex characteristics.
See also
- Adolescent sexuality
- Child sexuality
- Delayed puberty
- Eunuch
- Hebephilia
- Precocious puberty
- Secondary sex characteristic
- Puberphonia
- Kallmann syndrome
- Puberty blocker
