Peripubertal gonadal steroids are necessary for steroid-independent male sexual behavior in castrated B6D2F1 male mice

Suppression of ovarian hormones in adolescent rats has no effect on anxiety‐like behaviour or c‐fos activation in the amygdala

“…In addition, no group differences in c‐Fos cell counts were found in nuclei of the medial and basolateral amygdala. Overall, these data suggest that a moderate delay in exposure to gonadal hormones during adolescence does not significantly impact upon anxiety‐related behavioural and brain development in female rats, which contrasts with previous studies suggesting that adolescent exposure to testicular hormones has subtle, long‐term effects on behaviour in male rodents 24‐28 …”

“…Average AGD did not differ between the two female groups and thus AGD does not appear to be influenced by ovarian hormone exposure during this stage of life. This finding contrasts with studies of male rodents where AGD can show some plasticity during adolescence and adulthood in response to circulating androgen levels 28,83,84 …”

“…The majority of these studies have been conducted on male rodents and have compared the behaviour of males that were castrated before pubertal onset with males that were castrated at the end of adolescence (ie, only the post‐pubertally castrated males experienced normal gonadal hormone exposure during adolescence). Post‐pubertally castrated male rodents are reported to exhibit higher levels of aggression and sexual proficiency, as well as spend less time in the aversive areas of novel environments, in adulthood than pre‐pubertally castrated male rats, 24 Syrian hamsters ( Mesocricetus auratus ) 25‐27 and mice ( Mus musculus ) 28 . These findings indicate that exposure to gonadal hormones during adolescence influences behavioural development in male rodents, consistent with the hypothesis that adolescence is a ‘sensitive period’ of development 29 …”

Neuron- and microglia-specific immunoexpression in steroid-independent male sexual behaviour in castrated B6D2F1 male mice

“…The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted December 8, 2022. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.08.519640 doi: bioRxiv preprint Details of our male sexual behaviour assessments have been provided previously (Templin et al, 2019). In brief, after B6D2F1 hybrid males were surgically castrated with orchidectomy, they were allowed to recover for at least one week before assessing for MSB.…”

“…Here, using the B6D2F1 hybrid male mice, we replicated findings from previous studies that a significant proportion exhibited ejaculatory reflexes months after orchidectomy (Park et al ., 2009; Templin et al ., 2019). Within our cohort, we replicated the two distinct sexual phenotypes, comprising of those illustrating consistent male sexual behaviour (MSB) across 62 weeks post-orchidectomy over…”