Sexual touch at a young age can trigger puberty, claims study

'Sexual abuse and inappropriate sexual contact during development have long-lasting detrimental consequences,' researchers say

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A new study has found that females who have their genitals touched when young are likely to hit puberty earlier than their peers.

Research carried out on prepubescent female rats found that touching their genitals can cause the brain region that responds to such tactile stimuli to double in size, and signs of puberty can appear on the body up to three weeks earlier than non-stimulated females.

The researchers are hoping to discover whether hormones or sexual experience play a greater role in the onset of puberty.

They also conclude that sexual touch has a lasting effect on the brain.

“Sexual touch is strictly regulated in most human cultures and this is particularly true during development,” said Professor Michael Brecht from Humboldt University in Berlin.

“It has also become painfully clear that sexual abuse and inappropriate sexual contact during development have long-lasting detrimental consequences.

“Presumably the long-lasting problems from inappropriate sexual contact during development reflect brain changes resulting from sexual experience.

“Remarkably, structural brain imaging in humans with a history of sexual abuse identified a thinning of putative human genital cortex, as a cortical consequence of childhood sexual abuse.”

In previous research, Brecht had found that the size of the genital cortex in both male and female rates doubles at puberty.

He then wondered whether the change in the brain could also be a result of physical interactions, and whether puberty in female mice could be accelerated by contact with males.

To find out, 21 prepubescent female rats were held either in a cage with an older male rat, or in one where an older male could be seen, heard and smelled, but no contact could be made. The difference between the two is that in the former, direct tactile stimulation could be made, whereas in the latter, there would only be exposure to pheromones.

The researchers found that the now 30-day-old females who’d been housed with direct contact to the males had genital cortices the size of fully sexually mature females (50 days old).

They also had more physical signs of puberty, including an increased uterine weight and vaginal opening.

The females who’d been physically separated from the males only had mid-size genital cortices.

The researchers then sought to find out whether it was simply touch or the fact that it was by the males that accelerated puberty. To do this, they used a small brush held by a researcher to stroke the young female rats’ genitals - they found that this had the same accelerated genital cortex expansions and physical signs of puberty.

Researcher Constanze Lenschow said: “The effects of sexual touch on puberty and the genital cortex are remarkable since you wouldn’t expect this area of the brain to expand at this stage of development.”