Abstract
The aim of the study was to identify ultradian (intraday) and infradian (multi-day) rhythms in the dynamics of testosterone concentration in the blood serum of white-breasted hedgehogs. Blood sampling was performed from the femoral veins of 12 male hedgehogs. We found ultradian rhythms of testosterone on both sampling dates—March 7–8 (a day length of 11 hours and 15 minutes) and May 10–11 (a day length of 16 hours). An 8-hour rhythm of testosterone concentration has been established. The acrophases were at the same times in both photoperiods and thus independent of sunset times. The study of the infradian rhythms of testosterone was daily carried out on May 22—June 3, at 07:40 to 08:50 and from June 27 to July 7, at 16:15–16:50. It revealed an infradian rhythm of the testosterone concentration with a period of 4-days in both the morning and the evening sampling. According to our previous investigation, the infradian rhythms of testosterone among individual hedgehogs, rodents and primates have the same period. That indicates the common mechanisms for their formation. In case of experimental studies, the phase of ultradian and infradian biorhythms will need to be taken into account because the testosterone concentration in acrophase is 2–4 times higher than in bathyphase.
Highlights
The dynamics of physiological indicators of the organism have circadian and ultradian and infradian rhythms[1,2,3,4]
On March 7–8, 2019, when the sunset was at about 18:20 and sunrise was at 7:00, we studied individual fluctuations of testosterone concentration in the blood of 9 hedgehogs by the method of cosinor-analysis
The maxima of testosterone concentration were observed at 16:30 and at 8:30 of the day; a 16-hour interval was between 2 maxima
Summary
The dynamics of physiological indicators of the organism have circadian and ultradian and infradian rhythms[1,2,3,4]. The disruption of the dopamine transporter gene leads to an increase in the period of locomotor ultradian rhythms in mice, and the striatal dopamine levels fluctuate in synchrony with the ultradian activity cycles[10]. It is well-known that there are circaseptan (about-weekly) and circasemiseptan (about-half- weekly) infradian biorhythms of the glucocorticoid hormones concentration, melatonin level, mitotic activity, sodium excretion, heart rate variability, etc.[11,12,13,14,15]. Which pattern is shown by wild hedgehogs is unknown and is investigated in this study
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