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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Feb 15.
Published in final edited form as: Neuropharmacology. 2021 Jan 16;186:108463. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2021.108463

Fig. 2. Sex differences in CRF signals after 3α,5α-THP administration in hypothalamus.

Fig. 2.

A. 3α,5α-THP (15 mg/kg) IP administration increased 3α,5α-THP levels in hypothalamus of male and female rats (males VEH = 17.29 ng/g tissue vs 3α,5α-THP = 692.2 ± 47 ng/g tissue, p < 0.0001; females VEH = 28.5 ± 2 ng/g tissue vs 3α,5α-THP = 850.8 ± 80.6 ng/g tissue, p < 0.0001) (n = 7–8 rats per group). B. The results of the qPCR analysis showed higher hypothalamic baseline CRF mRNA in female rats (males = 0.7224 ± 0.09 vs females = 1.255 ± 0.11, p = 0.0018. 3α,5α-THP injection decreased CRF mRNA only in male rats (males VEH = 0.7224 ± 0.09 vs 3α,5α-THP = 0.3624 ± 0.04, p = 0.0461) (n = 5–11 rats per group); after the treatment, females mRNA expression was higher than males (males = 0.3624 ± 0.04 vs females = 1.457 ± 0.15, p < 0.0001). C. In contrast to the mRNA results, in basal condition western blotting showed in female rats have lower hypothalamic CRF peptide levels than males (males = 0.2857 ± 0.04 vs females = 0.0816 ± 0.03, p = 0.0009); 3α,5α-THP injection did not affect the basal levels of CRF peptide, but male rats treated with 3α,5α-THP resulted in higher CRF levels than the same group of female rats (males = 0.3091 ± 0.02 vs females = 0.1766 ± 0.04, p = 0.0343) (n = 6 per group). Significant effect was found using Two-way ANOVA, followed by Tukey HSD test, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001. Data are represented as mean ± SEM. VEH = rats treated with vehicle; 3α,5α-THP = rats treated with 3α,5α-THP.