Yon Lisa, Kanchanapangka Sumolya, Chaiyabutr Narongsak, Stanczyk Frank, Meepan Sompast, Lasley Bill
Center for Health and the Environment, University of California, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Gen Comp Endocrinol. 2007 May 1;151(3):246-51. doi: 10.1016/j.ygcen.2007.01.029. Epub 2007 Jan 28.
The phenomenon of musth is a very stressful event, both behaviorally and physiologically. An ACTH stimulation test was conducted in four adult Asian bull elephants to investigate the possibility that the classical hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is active during musth, resulting in an increase in adrenally produced steroids. Serum cortisol, testosterone (T), androstenedione (A4), androstenediol (A5), and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) were measured. Cortisol increased 3-10 times above baseline in response to ACTH stimulation, and DHEA doubled. A4 and A5 were erratic, while testosterone decreased significantly in all bulls. The pattern of results suggests that the adrenal steroid increase which occurs during musth results from some mechanism other than the classical HPA axis.
狂暴状态现象在行为和生理方面都是非常有压力的事件。对四头成年亚洲雄象进行了促肾上腺皮质激素（ACTH）刺激试验，以研究在狂暴状态期间经典下丘脑 - 垂体 - 肾上腺（HPA）轴是否活跃，从而导致肾上腺产生的类固醇增加。测量了血清皮质醇、睾酮（T）、雄烯二酮（A4）、雄烯二醇（A5）和脱氢表雄酮（DHEA）。在ACTH刺激下，皮质醇比基线水平增加了3至10倍，DHEA增加了一倍。A4和A5不稳定，而所有雄象的睾酮均显著下降。结果模式表明，狂暴状态期间出现的肾上腺类固醇增加是由经典HPA轴以外的某种机制引起的。
