Ovarian hormones modulate social recognition in female rats

Olfaction and social cognition in eusocial naked mole-rats, Heterocephalus glaber

“…This pattern is consistent with what is seen in laboratory mice and rats (e.g. Imwalle et al, 2002;S anchez-Andrade & Kendrick, 2011;Spiteri & Ågmo, 2009).…”

Estrogenic regulation of social behavior and sexually dimorphic brain formation

“…The involvement of estrogens in social recognition has been repeatedly described (reviewed in (Ervin et al, 2015a;Lymer et al, 2018). Female social recognition skills vary with the estrous cycle (Sanchez-Andrade and Kendrick, 2011), are reduced by ovariectomy, and can be restored with estrogens alone and with estrogens and progesterone replacement (Hlinak, 1993;Spiteri and Agmo, 2009 al., 2005). Investigations with mice with the gene for specific ERs specifically "knocked out", showed that ER is necessary for social recognition in males and females (Choleris et al, 2003;Choleris et al, 2006;Imwalle et al, 2002;Sanchez-Andrade and Kendrick, 2011), whereas ER seems less or not involved, affecting behavior in the social recognition test in ways that appear not directly related to social recognition (e.g.…”

Oxytocin, vasopressin and estrogen receptor gene expression in relation to social recognition in female mice

“…Administration of estrogens to ovariectomized (ovx) mice increases long-term social recognition memory [9], and both main intranuclear estrogen receptors, alpha (ERα) and beta (ERβ), appear to mediate social recognition, ERα more than ERβ [3,4,8,10–12]. Consistently, systemic treatment with ERα or ERβ agonists improved social recognition in mice when administered 48–72 h prior to testing [7,13,14], but only the ERα agonist improved performance rapidly (within 40 min [7,15]).…”

“…Although it has been the subject of little to no research, progesterone may also modulate social recognition. Treatment with estradiol benzoate and progesterone increased habituation rate in ovx rats [12], and progesterone receptor (PR) is expressed in social recognition-related brain areas (e.g., medial amygdala, MA [12]).…”