Early stress causes sex-specific, life-long changes in behaviour, levels of gonadal hormones, and gene expression in chickens.

ABSTRACT: Early stress can have long-lasting phenotypic effects. Previous research shows that male and female chickens differ in many behavioural aspects, and respond differently to chronic stress. The present experiment aimed to broadly characterize long-term sex differences in responses to brief events of stress experienced during the first weeks of life. Chicks from a commercial egg-laying hybrid were exposed to stress by inducing periods of social isolation during their first three weeks of life, followed by a broad behavioural, physiological and genomic characterization throughout life. Early stressed males, but not females, where more anxious in an open field-test, stayed shorter in tonic immobility and tended to have delayed sexual maturity, as shown by a tendency for lower levels of testoste

SUBMITTER: Elfwing M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4433227 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature