Stable behavioral inhibition and glucocorticoid production as predictors of longevity

Abstract

Several personality/temperament traits have been linked to health outcomes in humans and animals but underlying physiological mechanisms for these differential outcomes are minimally understood. In this paper, we compared the strength of a behavioral trait (behavioral inhibition) and an associated physiological trait (glucocorticoid production) in predicting life span. In addition, we examined the relative stability of both the behavioral and physiological trait within individuals over a significant portion of adulthood, and tested the hypothesis that a stable behavioral trait is linked with a stable physiological bias. In a sample of 60 Sprague-Dawley male rats, we found that stable inhibition/ neophobia was a stronger predictor of life span than stably elevated glucocorticoid production. In addition, these predictors appeared to have an additive influence on life span in that males with both risk factors (stable inhibition and consistently high glucocorticoid production) had the shortest life spans of all, suggesting both traits are important predictors of life span. Across a 4-month period in young adulthood, inhibition and glucocorticoid reactivity were relatively stable traits, however these two traits were not highly correlated with one another. Interestingly, baseline glucocorticoid production was a better predictor of life span than reactivity levels. The results indicate that glucocorticoid production in young adulthood is an important predictor of life span, although not as strong a predictor as inhibition, and that other physiological processes may further explain the shortened life span in behaviorally-inhibited individuals.

Temperament moderates the influence of periadolescent social experience on behavior and adrenocortical activity in adult male rats

“…The results of the present study replicate previous findings that male Sprague-Dawley rats, like human children, display relatively stable individual differences in exploratory behavioral responses to novelty, with weanling exploratory responses predicting adult exploratory behavior (Cavigelli & McClintock, 2003; Cavigelli et al, 2007; Cavigelli et al, 2009). Furthermore, the results indicate that these traits were relatively stable from weaning to young adulthood, even after experiencing divergent adolescent social experiences (i.e.…”

“…Previously we found that rat (Sprague-Dawley) neophobia/philia, characterized by locomotion in an unfamiliar and protected arena, was related to latency to approach novelty, and was moderately stable from pre-weaning age throughout adulthood, and was reproducible across studies (Cavigelli & McClintock, 2003; Cavigelli et al, 2007; Cavigelli, Ragan, Michael, Kovacsics, & Bruscke, 2009). Neophobic or inhibited males also had greater plasma CORT responses to novelty and stress compared with neophilic or non-inhibited males (Takahashi, 1992; Cavigelli & McClintock, 2003; Veenema, Sijtsma, Koolhaas, & de Kloet, 2005; Cavigelli et al, 2007; Qi et al, 2010; Díaz-Morán et al 2013; c.f.…”

Prolonged lifespan with enhanced exploratory behavior in mice overexpressing the oxidized nucleoside triphosphatase hMTH1

“…Wild-type (open bar) and hMTH1-Tg mice (black bar). and this has been linked to an improved ability to cope with environmental stressors and an enhanced immune response (PerezAlvarez et al, 2005;Yee et al, 2008;Cavigelli et al, 2010;Aguilera, 2011). Decreased anxiety, in association however with learning impairment and enhanced locomotor activity, has been reported in a mouse model of defective mitochondrial DNA repair expressing a mutant version of the mitochondrial UNG gene (Lauritzen et al, 2010).…”

Oxidative profile varies with personality in European greenfinches

“…Costantini et al, 2008a) or physiological stress responsiveness (e.g. Cavigelli et al, 2009), are an intriguing new angle on the survival costs to personality.…”

“…However, several lines of evidence support this relationship indirectly. First, longevity varies with personality (Cavigelli and McClintock, 2003;Cavigelli et al, 2009;Ewalds-Kwist and Selander, 1996), suggesting a cumulative cost to personality. In LAL-SAL mice for example, young LAL mice have a higher antioxidant capacity than SAL mice yet their oxidative stress levels are not lower, and ultimately they have shorter life spans (Costantini et al, 2008a;Ewalds-Kwist and Selander, 1996).…”