Gonadectomy prior to puberty decreases normal parental behavior in adult mice

Abstract

Sex steroid hormones secreted by gonads influence development and expression of many behaviors including parental behaviors. The capacity to display many behaviors develops under the influence of sex steroid hormones; it begins with gonadal differentiation and lasts through puberty. The timing of gonadectomy may have important and long lasting effects on the organization and activation of neural circuits regulating the expression of different behaviors. The present study investigated the importance of exposure to endogenous gonadal steroid hormones during pubertal period/adolescence on parental behavior in adult mice. Male and female WT mice were gonadectomized either before puberty (25 days of age) or after puberty (60 days of age) and tested for parental behavior with and without estradiol benzoate (EB) replacement in adulthood. Additional groups of mice were gonadectomized at P25 and supplemented with estradiol (females) or testosterone (males) during puberty. Female mice gonadectomized after puberty or gonadectomized before puberty and supplemented with estradiol during puberty, displayed better pup directed parental behaviors in comparison to mice gonadectomized at 25 days of age regardless treatment with estradiol in adulthood. However, mice treated with EB in adulthood displayed better non-pup directed nest building behavior than when they were tested without EB treatment regardless of sex and time of gonadectomy. To examine whether the sensitivity to sex steroid hormones was altered due to differences in time without gonads prior to the testing, mice were also tested for female sex behavior and there were no differences between mice gonadectomized at P25 or P60, although this could not completely rule out the possibility that parental behavior is more sensitive to prolonged absence of steroid hormones than female sex behavior. These results suggest that the absence of gonads and thereby the absence of appropriate gonadal steroid hormones during puberty/adolescence may have a profound effect on pup directed parental behaviors in adult mice.

Sex differences in the brain–an interplay of sex steroid hormones and sex chromosomes

“…Castration before puberty thus greatly impairs male sexual behaviour in Syrian hamsters even in the presence of appropriate activational testosterone [55]. The effect of puberty was also observed in our study on maternal behaviour as female mice gonadectomized prior to puberty show decreases in maternal behaviour [56].…”

Ovarian Hormones Organize the Maturation of Inhibitory Neurotransmission in the Frontal Cortex at Puberty Onset in Female Mice

“…Organizational effects are frequently observed in sexually dimorphic subcortical regions [49–52], are often regulated by androgens, and may vary in their intensity based on timing of hormonal exposure[42, 53]. In females, there is evidence that ingestive [54] and parental behavior [55] may be organized by ovarian hormones at puberty, but to our knowledge, the present data are the first to demonstrate changes in neurotransmission organized by ovarian hormones at puberty.…”

The organizing actions of adolescent gonadal steroid hormones on brain and behavioral development

“…Female mice OVX prior to puberty spend less time with pups, take longer to retrieve them, and retrieve fewer of them, as compared to either females that are OVX after puberty in adulthood. However, these maternal behaviors are preserved in prepubertally OVX females that receive estradiol during the time of puberty (Kercmar, Snoj, Tobet, & Majdic, 2014), again providing evidence that estradiol, in some behavioral contexts, actively feminizes the adolescent brain.…”