Sex hormones' regulation of rodent physical activity: a review - PubMed (original) (raw)
Review
Sex hormones' regulation of rodent physical activity: a review
J Timothy Lightfoot. Int J Biol Sci. 2008.
Abstract
There is a large body of emerging literature suggesting that physical activity is regulated to a varying extent by biological factors. Available animal data strongly suggests that there is a differential regulation of physical activity by sex and that the majority of this differential regulation is mediated by estrogen/testosterone pathways with females in many animal species having higher daily activity levels than males. The purpose of this manuscript is to review the mechanisms by which estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone affect the regulation of physical daily activity. This review lays the foundation for future investigations in humans as well as discussions about relative disease risk mediated by differential biological regulation of physical activity by sex.
Keywords: estrogen; mammals; mice; physiology; progesterone; testosterone.
Conflict of interest statement
Conflict of interest: The author has declared that no conflict of interest exists.
Figures
Figure 1
Representative literature reporting percentage difference in female activity vs. male activity in rodents.
Figure 2
The yearly distribution of studies regarding the effect of sex hormones on physical activity. The x-axis designates the ten-year period in which the studies were published. (Personal communication from R. Bowen)
Figure 3
Wheel running behavior after five days of phytoestrogen supplementation. *Significantly different from vehicle/placebo treatment. Drawn from tabular data presented by Garey, et al. .
Figure 4
Hypothesized schematic of the regulation of physical activity by sex hormones in rodents. “?” = pathway currently supported by speculation and/or tentative data. DAT = dopamine transporter; D2/D4, D1/D5 signify different dopamine receptor populations.
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