Original articleEstrogen Deficient Male Mice Develop Compulsive Behavior
Section snippets
Animals
ArKO mice (C57B6J X J129) were generated by disruption of the Cyp19 gene. Homologous null or wild type (WT) offspring were bred by crossing heterozygous ArKO, and genotyped by PCR. Animals were housed under SPF and environmentally enriched conditions and had ad libitum access to water and soy free mouse chow (Glen Forrest Stockfeeders, Glen Forrest, Western Australia, Australia). Mice were killed by cervical dislocation, the brains removed and dissected in RNAlater™ (Ambion Inc, Austin, Texas)
Ambulatory and Wheel-Running Activities
The ambulatory study was completed prior to the commencement of the running wheel study. Male ArKO mice display significant (p < .05) increases in wheel-running activity when compared to WT controls (Figure 1A). This excessive running wheel activity was suppressed upon 17β-estradiol replacement (Figure 1A). In contrast, general ambulatory activity was significantly decreased (p < .05) in the male ArKO compared to WT (Figure 1B), indicating a wheel-running specific increase in activity in male
Discussion
The present study demonstrates that the absence of estrogen in adult male mice leads to excessive barbering, wheel-running and grooming activities, paralleled by a significant decrease in COMT protein expression in the hypothalamus. By contrast, we have not noticed stereotypy behaviors (such as barmouthing, jumping, somersaulting or route-tracing) in our ArKO colony during the behavior studies, day-to-day handling of the animals or after performing an observation analysis on our animals (first
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2021, NeuroscienceCitation Excerpt :It is possible that the increased grooming is a self-soothing mechanism indicative of resilience (Reis-Silva et al., 2019). Increased grooming has also been used as an anxiety measure especially in attempting to model obsessive–compulsive disorder (Hill et al., 2007; Kalueff et al., 2007). Furthermore, under white light conditions, which are anxiety provoking, male mice exposed to chronic mild stress and tested with the splash test groom more than controls (unpublished observation).
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2021, Behavioural Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :Therefore, the contribution of striatal astrocytic GLT1 and/or glutamate function in OCD and specifically syntactic chains grooming behaviors is warranted for the future study. Aromatase KO mice, as a genetic model of OCD, showed increased wheel-running activity and grooming but decreased ambulatory activity [21,22]. Similarly, we showed the increased wheel running activity, which is believed as a type of compulsive running behavior of OCD [29].
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2020, Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersCitation Excerpt :After controlling for the severity of depression, the results for the right 2D:4D and Dr-l also withstood the Bonferroni correction, which is of interest as there is evidence that the right 2D:4D is more sensitive to prenatal sex hormones (Baxter et al., 2019). The direction of our findings is consistent with results of previous findings supporting the assumption that higher testosterone levels (a testosterone/estrogen imbalance) are related to the age at onset or worsening of OCD (see Flaisher-Grinberg et al., 2009; Hill et al., 2007; Karpinski, Mattina, & Steiner, 2017; Labad et al., 2005; Miller et al., 2015; Mitra et al., 2016; Young et al., 2007). Overall, our findings seem to be in line with the results of endocrinological examinations mentioned by Swaab (2007), who reported that weeks 8–24 of gestation is an extraordinarily sensitive period due to permanent organizational events occurring in the developing cortex (at this time, testosterone levels also peak).
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