Fig. 3

Effects of SPS in males are largely independent of adult testicular hormones. a, b Changes in gonadal hormone status did not affect the ability of SPS to enhance the ASR or negative feedback control of stress-induced CORT levels in male rats. In each hormonal condition, DEX inhibited the rise in CORT levels 30 min after restraint stress only in SPS males, with the exception of control males that were gonadectomized and treated with testosterone (GDX + T), possibly reflecting the small sample size of this particular group. c While SPS increased GR expression in the male PVN, this effect was not apparent in GDX males. Because GDX alone also increased the number of GR+ PVN neurons, this effect may have masked a genuine effect of SPS. Because T treatment did not reverse this effect, other testicular hormones may normally inhibit GR expression in the PVN. d GDX increased the latency of control, but not SPS, males to approach a novel rat, whereas SPS per se appeared to have no effect on this measure. These data highlight the possibility that gonadal hormones may mask real effects of trauma or spuriously introduce apparent effects of trauma, simply because baseline measures are influenced by hormones independent of the trauma itself. e Neither SPS nor hormone status affected sucrose preference in males. Data was presented as mean ±SEM. Significance set at P < .05 (*) for planned pairwise comparisons (Bonferroni). See Additional file 4 for full statistics