Immunity and Sex Concerns on Behaviour

Aims: To find evidence that the immune response modifies behavior by regulating sex hormones.

Study Design: Experimental transversal case control study and longitudinal experimental case control study.

Place and Duration of Study: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Chair, School of Medicine, Medical Sciences Faculty, National University of Córdoba. 2009-2015.

Methodology: Albino Swiss mice Rockefeller strain (110) weighing 30g were assigned to two experimental designs. Transversal case control physiologic solution vs or Celtis tala pollen glycoprotein T evaluated in forced swimming test along the course of antibodies production. Similar study but cases were treated with spironolactone(S) and immunized as previous mice. Longitudinal case control study with cases and controls the same categories as the second study but followed and evaluated in FST. Climbing, swimming floating summing a total of 8 events and delated time to contact another mouse CT (seconds) were recorded. Plasma IgE and testosterone (Tt) were also measured.

Results: Immunization with T increases the proportion of climbing in both sexes at day 7(c.male 0.42, T.male 0.72, c.female 0.28, T.female 0.68) and reverted at day 15 (c.male 0.8, T.male 0.35, c.female 0.47, T.female 0.43). Since climbing is more frequent in male we treated mice with S to determine if immunization effects were mediated by testosterone and reverted the changes triggered by C. tala (day 7, ST. males 0.22, STfemales 0.35, day 15 ST.male 0.23, ST.female 0.32). T caused a shortening of CT in males from day 7 to 15, S produced the opposite and ST was partly similar to T (T.male12.5 to 5, Smale 8,2 to 14, ST.male 11 to 4.2 in sec, T.female 2.9 to 6.2, S.female 7.8 to 17, ST.female 13 to 9.6 sec). Plasma concentration ranges of Tt (ng/mL) were: CM 0.75-6.72, TM 31.1-58.5; STM 26-29.5; all females remained between 0.3-039.

Conclusion: The results presented in this paper support our hypothesis that immune response could modify mice FST performance by regulation of testosterone levels.