Evolutionary endocrinology: information encoded in steroid hormone concentrations

进化内分泌学：类固醇激素浓度编码的信息

• 批准号: 106386-2008
• 负责人: WynneEdwards, Katherine
• 金额: $ 2.58万
• 依托单位: Queen's University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2009-01-01 至 2010-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=421845
• 关键词: Evolutionary; endocrinology; information; encoded; steroid

As evolutionary endocrinologists, we are experts in the precise measurement of hormones in biological fluids such as saliva and blood and egg yolk. These skills support student projects as diverse as hormone involvement in adolescent onset depression, testosterone variability in aging men, hormonal changes in men becoming fathers, chronic and acute responses to stress, trans-generational effects of maternal stress on development of embryos, and hormone dynamics within individuals. Understanding hormone dynamics within individuals is the focus of this proposal, with experiments that obtain up to 24 small samples from one individual and then calculate the hormonal variability that the individual experiences from day to day. In spite of our new methods that provide tight experimental controls and small measurement error, we find that repeated sampling reveals huge variability. Within one male hamster, for example, testosterone concentrations fall anywhere between a low of 20 and a high of 2000 ng/dL over 24 repeated samples. Variability is also large in men, women, and adolescent girls, whether measured for sex hormones or for stress hormones. In addition, we have preliminary evidence that our measure of variability, the dynamic index, can change at critical transitions in life, such as becoming a father, and in response to lifestyle choices, such as exercise and diet. Coding information in concentration, and in dynamic variability around that concentration, would enable one hormone to carry two independent messages. Thus, proposed research will test our hypothesis that hormone variability, or 'noise', contains a hormone 'signal'. If the hypothesis is supported, our results will transform future experimental designs, bridge missing links between hormones and behaviour, and, eventually, might lead to changes in hormone delivery that reduce health risks.

作为进化的内分泌学家，我们是对唾液和血液和蛋黄等生物液中激素的精确测量的专家。这些技能支持学生项目，例如激素参与青少年抑郁症，衰老男性的睾丸激素变异性，男性成为父亲的激素变化，对压力的慢性和急性反应，孕产妇压力对胚胎的发展的跨代作用，以及个体内部的激素动态。了解个体内部的激素动力学是该提案的重点，实验可以从一个个体中获得多达24个小样本，然后计算个人每天经历的激素变异性。尽管我们提供了紧密的实验控制和小测量误差的新方法，但我们发现重复采样揭示了巨大的可变性。例如，在一个雄性仓鼠中，睾丸激素浓度在24个重复的样品中低于20至2000 ng/dl的高位。男性，女性和青少年女孩的变异性也很大，无论是用性激素衡量还是用于压力激素。此外，我们有初步证据表明，我们的变异性量度，动态指数可以在生活中的关键转变（例如成为父亲）以及对生活方式选择（例如运动和饮食）的回应时发生变化。集中精力的编码信息以及该浓度的动态变异性，将使一种激素能够携带两个独立的消息。因此，提出的研究将检验我们的假设，即激素变异性或“噪声”包含激素“信号”。如果支持该假设，我们的结果将改变未来的实验设计，激素与行为之间的桥梁缺失联系，最终可能导致激素递送的变化，从而降低健康风险。