PMID- 24236119
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20140725
LR  - 20211021
IS  - 1932-6203 (Electronic)
IS  - 1932-6203 (Linking)
VI  - 8
IP  - 11
DP  - 2013
TI  - Estrogen receptor alpha functions in the regulation of motivation and spatial 
      cognition in young male rats.
PG  - e79303
LID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0079303 [doi]
LID - e79303
AB  - Estrogenic functions in regulating behavioral states such as motivation, mood, 
      anxiety, and cognition are relatively well documented in female humans and 
      animals. In males, however, although the entire enzymatic machinery for producing 
      estradiol and the corresponding receptors are present, estrogenic functions have 
      been largely neglected. Therefore, and as a follow-up study to previous research, 
      we sub-chronically applied a specific estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha) antagonist in 
      young male rats before and during a spatial learning task (holeboard). The male 
      rats showed a dose-dependent increase in motivational, but not cognitive, 
      behavior. The expression of hippocampal steroid receptor genes, such as 
      glucocorticoid (GR), mineralocorticoid (MR), androgen (AR), and the estrogen 
      receptor ERalpha but not ERbeta was dose-dependently reduced. The expression of the 
      aromatase but not the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) encoding gene was 
      also suppressed. Reduced gene expression and increased behavioral performance 
      converged at an antagonist concentration of 7.4 micromol. The hippocampal and blood 
      serum hormone levels (corticosterone, testosterone, and 17beta-estradiol) did not 
      differ between the experimental groups and controls. We conclude that steroid 
      receptors (and BDNF) act in a concerted, network-like manner to affect behavior 
      and mutual gene expression. Therefore, the isolated view on single receptor types 
      is probably insufficient to explain steroid effects on behavior. The steroid 
      network may keep motivation in homeostasis by supporting and constraining the 
      behavioral expression of motivation.
FAU - Meyer, Katrin
AU  - Meyer K
AD  - Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany ; Institute for Biology, 
      Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany.
FAU - Korz, Volker
AU  - Korz V
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20131113
PL  - United States
TA  - PLoS One
JT  - PloS one
JID - 101285081
RN  - 0 (Estrogen Receptor alpha)
RN  - 0 (Hormones)
RN  - 0 (Pyrazoles)
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - Behavior, Animal
MH  - Cognition/*physiology
MH  - Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
MH  - Estrogen Receptor alpha/antagonists & inhibitors/*metabolism
MH  - Gene Expression
MH  - Hormones/metabolism
MH  - Male
MH  - Maze Learning
MH  - Memory, Short-Term/drug effects
MH  - Motivation/*physiology
MH  - Pyrazoles/administration & dosage/pharmacology
MH  - Rats
PMC - PMC3827345
COIS- Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
EDAT- 2013/11/16 06:00
MHDA- 2014/07/26 06:00
PMCR- 2013/11/13
CRDT- 2013/11/16 06:00
PHST- 2013/02/15 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2013/09/22 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2013/11/16 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2013/11/16 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2014/07/26 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2013/11/13 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - PONE-D-13-07276 [pii]
AID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0079303 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - PLoS One. 2013 Nov 13;8(11):e79303. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0079303. 
      eCollection 2013.