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Stressful stimuli associated with aggressive encounters and low social rank may affect female fertility in a variety of mammalian species. In these experiments we examined the effects of aggressive encounters and physical restraint in a primate chair on the patterns of LH secretion in ovariectomized, oestrogen-primed female marmosets. Receipt of aggression from a female conspecific, followed by physical restraint for collection of blood samples (at 10-min intervals for 4 h), resulted in marked declines in LH concentrations during oestradiol-induced LH surges in five animals (from 112 ± 24 µg/l to 45±12 µg/l; group means ± S.E.M.; P<0·05). This was due to reductions in LH pulse amplitude rather than to changes in pulse frequency. Decreases in plasma concentrations of LH were reversed by treating females with exogenous LH-releasing hormone (LHRH). Cortisol treatment had no effect on LH levels during oestrogen-induced LH surges. Effects of aggressive encounters and physical restraint on plasma LH were not therefore due to reduced pituitary responsiveness to LHRH or to increased plasma concentrations of cortisol. In separate experiments it was found that physical restraint alone had no effect on plasma LH in habituated subjects, and that decreases in plasma LH after receipt of aggression only occurred if animals were subsequently placed in the restraint chair. A summation of stressful effects is therefore required to produce the fall in circulating LH. A summation of social and other environmental stressors may also underlie the reduced fertility seen in free-living animals.

J. Endocr. (1988) 118, 259–264