There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
The relationship between castration and reduced male aggression is well established.
However, anecdotal observations of male prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) suggest
that castration does not reduce aggressive behavior. To investigate the role of testicular
androgens on aggressive behavior, castrated or gonadally intact male prairie voles
were paired in a neutral arena with a gonadally intact vole. Castration did not reduce
the frequency of intermale aggression. In Experiment 2, aggressive behavior was examined
further using resident-intruder, grouped aggression, and aggression against a lactating
female models. Again, castration did not affect the frequency of aggression in male
prairie voles. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that aggressive behavior
may be independent of gonadal steroid hormones in adult male prairie voles.