Early androgen treatment and male and female sexual behavior in mice

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Abstract

To investigate the role of neonatal androgen stimulation in the development of the potential for masculine and feminine sexual behavior in the mouse, different groups of mice were hormonally manipulated early in life. One group of female mice was administered testosterone propionate (TP) within 24 hr of birth; a second group of females was given a control injection of oil on the day of birth; a third group of females received an injection of TP on the 10th day after birth. A group of males received a control injection of oil on the day of birth. All mice were gonadectomized at about 30 days of age. At 60 days of age, mice were injected with estrogen and progesterone and tested for sexual receptivity; several weeks later all mice were injected with TP and tested for male sexual behavior. Female behavior: Females given oil at birth and females given TP on the 10th day after birth showed high levels of sexual receptivity as adults following estrogen-progesterone treatment. Females given TP on the day of birth, and male mice, rarely exhibited lordosis following estrogen-progesterone treatment. Male behavior: Most mice, regardless of genetic sex or neonatal treatment, mounted in adulthood following administration of exogenous androgen. There was little difference in mounting frequency between groups, suggesting that exogenous or endogenous androgen stimulation of the neonatal mouse does not facilitate adult mounting behavior. These data for the mouse are in essential agreement with existing data for the rat, and indicate that sexual behavioral differentiation induced by androgen stimulation in infancy is best characterized as an inhibition of the potential to display feminine sexual behavior in adulthood.

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    This suggests that the neural circuit for masculine sexual behavior is present in both sexes, but it is normally inhibited by sensory input from the VNO (Figure 5A). One signal that overrides this sensory inhibition is the male sex hormone testosterone, as adult wild-type females supplemented with testosterone display male-pattern mating toward females at male-typical frequencies (Figure 5A) (Edwards and Burge, 1971a). These studies suggest a model in which sex differences in the neural circuit underlying male sexual behavior regulate the probability of displaying this behavior such that VNO sensory input decreases and testosterone increases this probability (Figure 5A).

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