ABSTRACT
The responses of gonadotropin and gonadal steroids to the administration of clomiphene citrate were studied in male and female chimpanzees, aged 3.6 to 9.9 years. Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) was significantly reduced after treatment in the prepubertal females (n = 4) and in early pubertal males (n = 2) but not in prepubertal males (n = 5). FSH was unchanged or increased in early pubertal females (n = 2) and late pubertal males (n = 2). There was no consistent response to treatment with clomiphene citrate by luteinizing hormone (LH) in either males or females, nor by 17 beta-estradiol in the females. Testosterone levels were reduced in the early pubertal males only. These results support the hypothesis that negative feedback by gonadal steroids is operative in prepubertal chimpanzees and that puberty is accompanied by a reduction in the sensitivity to such feedback.
Subject(s)
Clomiphene/pharmacology , Hormones/metabolism , Pan troglodytes/metabolism , Animals , Dehydroepiandrosterone/analogs & derivatives , Dehydroepiandrosterone/blood , Dehydroepiandrosterone Sulfate , Estradiol/blood , Female , Follicle Stimulating Hormone/blood , Hydrocortisone/blood , Luteinizing Hormone/blood , Male , Puberty, Delayed , Radioimmunoassay , Testosterone/bloodABSTRACT
Ten male and eleven female Chimpanzees from three to nine years of age were studied to establish possible correlations between behavioral changes and hormonal changes peculiar to adrenarche and the pre-puberty period. Most of the thirteen behaviors studied varied with age, body weight and hormones. For the males, the correlations were significant statistically for age, weight and plasma concentration of testosterone and of FSH. The correlations for the females were more often not significant statistically. In ten out of the thirteen behaviors for the female, however, the correlations with the sulfate of plasma dehydroepiandrosterone were in the same direction as those observed for the males with testosterone.
