Bressan Paola, Kramer Peter
Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy.
Horm Behav. 2022 Jan;137:104937. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2021.104937. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
In the phase between ovulation and potential implantation of the egg, and especially during pregnancy, females downregulate their immune system to prevent it from attacking the (future) embryo, which is after all a half-foreign organism. Yet this adaptive mechanism, that is set off by rising progesterone, makes females more vulnerable to pathogens at those critical times. It has been proposed that, to compensate this depression of physiological immunity, progesterone reinforces behavioral immunity-by increasing proneness to disgust and hence active avoidance of infection-but evidence is inconclusive and indirect. Manipulating progesterone directly, a recent, crucial study on female mice's disgust for infected males came up empty handed. Here, reanalyzing these data in a more statistically sensitive manner, we show that progesterone not only raises disgust but does so in a way that is both significant and substantial.
在卵子排卵与可能着床的阶段,尤其是在怀孕期间,女性会下调自身免疫系统,以防止其攻击(未来的)胚胎,毕竟胚胎是一种半异体生物。然而,这种由孕酮水平升高引发的适应性机制,使女性在这些关键时期更容易受到病原体的侵害。有人提出,为了弥补生理免疫的这种抑制,孕酮会增强行为免疫——通过增加厌恶倾向从而积极避免感染——但证据尚无定论且较为间接。最近一项关于雌性小鼠对感染雄性的厌恶的关键研究,直接对孕酮进行操控,却一无所获。在此,我们以一种统计上更敏感的方式重新分析这些数据,结果表明孕酮不仅会引发厌恶,而且其引发方式具有显著意义且程度可观。