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Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning

It is widely established that gonadal hormones are fundamental to modulating and organizing the sex-specific nature of reproductive behaviors. Recently we proposed that context fear conditioning (CFC) may emerge in a sex-specific manner organized prior to the pubertal surge of gonadal hormones. Here...

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Autores principales: Colón, Lorianna, Peru, Eduardo, Zuloaga, Damian G., Poulos, Andrew M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9980802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36862730
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282293
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author Colón, Lorianna
Peru, Eduardo
Zuloaga, Damian G.
Poulos, Andrew M.
author_facet Colón, Lorianna
Peru, Eduardo
Zuloaga, Damian G.
Poulos, Andrew M.
author_sort Colón, Lorianna
collection PubMed
description It is widely established that gonadal hormones are fundamental to modulating and organizing the sex-specific nature of reproductive behaviors. Recently we proposed that context fear conditioning (CFC) may emerge in a sex-specific manner organized prior to the pubertal surge of gonadal hormones. Here we sought to determine the necessity of male and female gonadal hormones secreted at critical periods of development upon context fear learning. We tested the organizational hypothesis that neonatal and pubertal gonadal hormones play a permanent role in organizing contextual fear learning. We demonstrate that the postnatal absence of gonadal hormones by neonatal orchiectomy (oRX) in males and ovariectomy (oVX) in females resulted in an attenuation of CFC in adult males and an enhancement of CFC in adult females. In females, the gradual introduction of estrogen before conditioning partially rescued this effect. However, the decrease of CFC in adult males was not rescued by introducing testosterone before conditioning. Next, at a further point in development, preventing the pubertal surge of gonadal hormones by prepubertal oRX in males resulted in a reduction in adult CFC. In contrast, in females, prepubertal oVX did not alter adult CFC. However, the adult introduction of estrogen in prepubertal oVX rats reduced adult CFC. Lastly, the adult-specific deletion of gonadal hormones by adult oRX or oVX alone or replacement of testosterone or estrogen did not alter CFC. Consistent with our hypothesis, we provide initial evidence that gonadal hormones at early periods of development exert a vital role in the organization and development of CFC in male and female rats.
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spelling pubmed-99808022023-03-03 Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning Colón, Lorianna Peru, Eduardo Zuloaga, Damian G. Poulos, Andrew M. PLoS One Research Article It is widely established that gonadal hormones are fundamental to modulating and organizing the sex-specific nature of reproductive behaviors. Recently we proposed that context fear conditioning (CFC) may emerge in a sex-specific manner organized prior to the pubertal surge of gonadal hormones. Here we sought to determine the necessity of male and female gonadal hormones secreted at critical periods of development upon context fear learning. We tested the organizational hypothesis that neonatal and pubertal gonadal hormones play a permanent role in organizing contextual fear learning. We demonstrate that the postnatal absence of gonadal hormones by neonatal orchiectomy (oRX) in males and ovariectomy (oVX) in females resulted in an attenuation of CFC in adult males and an enhancement of CFC in adult females. In females, the gradual introduction of estrogen before conditioning partially rescued this effect. However, the decrease of CFC in adult males was not rescued by introducing testosterone before conditioning. Next, at a further point in development, preventing the pubertal surge of gonadal hormones by prepubertal oRX in males resulted in a reduction in adult CFC. In contrast, in females, prepubertal oVX did not alter adult CFC. However, the adult introduction of estrogen in prepubertal oVX rats reduced adult CFC. Lastly, the adult-specific deletion of gonadal hormones by adult oRX or oVX alone or replacement of testosterone or estrogen did not alter CFC. Consistent with our hypothesis, we provide initial evidence that gonadal hormones at early periods of development exert a vital role in the organization and development of CFC in male and female rats. Public Library of Science 2023-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC9980802/ /pubmed/36862730 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282293 Text en © 2023 Colón et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Colón, Lorianna
Peru, Eduardo
Zuloaga, Damian G.
Poulos, Andrew M.
Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning
title Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning
title_full Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning
title_fullStr Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning
title_full_unstemmed Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning
title_short Contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning
title_sort contributions of gonadal hormones in the sex-specific organization of context fear learning
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9980802/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36862730
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282293
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