Relevance of Stress and Female Sex Hormones for Emotion and Cognition

Abstract

There are clear sex differences in incidence and onset of stress-related and other psychiatric disorders in humans. Yet, rodent models for psychiatric disorders are predominantly based on male animals. The strongest argument for not using female rodents is their estrous cycle and the fluctuating sex hormones per phase which multiplies the number of animals to be tested. Here, we will discuss studies focused on sex differences in emotionality and cognitive abilities in experimental conditions with and without stress. First, female sex hormones such as estrogens and progesterone affect emotions and cognition, contributing to sex differences in behavior. Second, females respond differently to stress than males which might be related to the phase of the estrous cycle. For example, female rats and mice express less anxiety than males in a novel environment. Proestrus females are less anxious than females in the other estrous phases. Third, males perform in spatial tasks superior to females. However, while stress impairs spatial memory in males, females improve their spatial abilities, depending on the task and kind of stressor. We conclude that the differences in emotion, cognition and responses to stress between males and females over the different phases of the estrous cycle should be used in animal models for stress-related psychiatric disorders.

Stress and estrous cycle affect strategy but not performance of female C57BL/6J mice

“…It should be taken into account however, that behavior of female mice and rats depends on several factors, such as the type of learning task (complex or simple, emotional or cognitive), phase of the task (acquisition or memory retrieval), the type of stressor and the estrous cycle phase [15]. The adversity of a task influences the task-inherent activation of the stress system and concurrently also emotionality.…”

“…The strategy of females during stress is of interest because of their higher basal and stress-induced corticosterone concentrations [9][10][11][12][13][14] than observed in male rats. In addition, in multiple learning paradigms females behave differently during naive and in stressful situations compared to males [15]. In the present study, we assessed which strategy female mice use under normal and stress conditions and how stress does influence their performance.…”

Anxiety, stress and depression in family members of patients with heart failure

“…In this study, we found that women presented higher levels of anxiety and stress. The presence of stress and psychiatric disorders in women has been reported in the literature, and may be related to female hormones, their reproductive cycle phase (29) and domestic activities (13) . Another factor that should be considered in the analysis is the accumulation of tasks performed by women, which can increase stress levels.…”

Estrogen and Transdiagnostics: A Systematic Review

“…Studies show that women are twice as prone to suffering from fear and anxiety disorders [5][6][7]. Generalized anxiety, panic and post-traumatic stress disorders are highly prevalent in this female physiological framework.…”