Cognitive behavior and neuroendocrine differences between male and female gerbils (Meriones meridianus)

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  • (College of Life Sciences,Northwest Normal University,Lanzhou 730070,China)

Online published: 2019-11-27

Abstract

This research investigated the cognitive and neuroendocrine differences between male and female midday gerbils (Meriones meridianu) in novel object and social recognition test. Immunohidtochemistry method was used to detect the number of neurons involved in the synthesis of oxytocin (OT), vasopressin (AVP) and dopamine (DA). And the serum levels of OT and AVP were detected by enzyme-linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA). The results showed that the time of exploring new objects both male and female gerbils was significantly higher than that of old objects, and the identification indexes were no significant difference between the male and female (P>0.05). The male gerbils decreased the exploring time to the repeated stimulus a with the increasing of exploring number, and the exploration time for strange stimulus b is significantly higher than that of the stimulus a (P <0.05); however, the female gerbils did not have such a performance. The number of OT neurons in the Paraventricular Nucleus (PVN) and Supraoptic Nucleus (SON) in males gerbils were significantly lower than these in females (P < 0.05) and the number of DA neurons in the Substantia Nigra (SN) (P <0.01) in males gerbils were significantly higher than these in females; however, the number of DA neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) in males were significantly lower than these in females (P <0.01). There was no significant different in serum OT and AVP levels between male and female gerbils. In summary, there was no significant difference in new object cognition between male and female gerbils, but the social cognition of male gerbils was stranger than that of female gerbils. On the neuroendocrine level, the number of OT neurons in PVN and SON as well as the number of DA neurons in SN and VTA showed gender differences between male and female midday gerbils.

Cite this article

GONG Dajie, CAO Ruidong, ZHAO Haochi, ZHANG Mingyu, MIAO Fei, YU Peng . Cognitive behavior and neuroendocrine differences between male and female gerbils (Meriones meridianus)[J]. ACTA THERIOLOGICA SINICA, 2019 , 39(5) : 496 -503 . DOI: 10.16829/j.slxb.150287

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