Olfactory exposure to males, including men, causes stress and related analgesia in rodents
Abstract
We found that exposure of mice and rats to male but not female experimenters produces pain inhibition. Male-related stimuli induced a robust physiological stress response that results in stress-induced analgesia. This effect could be replicated with T-shirts worn by men, bedding material from gonadally intact and unfamiliar male mammals, and presentation of compounds secreted from the human axilla. Experimenter sex can thus affect apparent baseline responses in behavioral testing.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Olfactory cues of male, but not female, researchers induce stress and related analgesia in rodents.
“Olfactory cues of male, but not female, researchers is shown to induce stress and related analgesia in rodents45.”
From Integrated analysis of behavioral, epigenetic, and gut microbiome analyses in AppNL-G-F, AppNL-F, and wild type mice (2021) · cites this paper as [45]
Differences in the sex of the researcher and the sex of mice could have contributed to the divergent finding in performance of 6-month-old AppNL-G-F mice in the behavioral tests described above.
“All of our behavioral assays described above were carried out by female researchers and differences in the sex of the researcher and the sex of mice could have contributed to the divergent finding in performance of 6-month-old AppNL-G-F mice in the behavioral tests described above.”
From Integrated analysis of behavioral, epigenetic, and gut microbiome analyses in AppNL-G-F, AppNL-F, and wild type mice (2021) · cites this paper as [45]
Sex of the experimenter affects physiological stress.
“Sex of the experimenter | Affects physiological stress and pain behaviour [205].”
From Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (2020) · cites this paper as [205]
Sex of the experimenter affects pain behaviour.
“Sex of the experimenter | Affects physiological stress and pain behaviour [205].”
From Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0 (2020) · cites this paper as [205]
Cites
An endocannabinoid mechanism for stress-induced analgesia
Hohmann, A. G., Suplita, R. L., Bolton, N. M., Neely, M. H., Fegley, D., Mangieri, R., Krey, J. F., Michael Walker, J., Holmes, P. V., Crystal, J. D., et al. (2005) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature03658 · Cited by 778 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Reporting animal research: Explanation and elaboration for the ARRIVE guidelines 2.0
Percie du Sert, N., Ahluwalia, A., Alam, S., Avey, M. T., Baker, M., Browne, W. J., Clark, A., Cuthill, I. C., Dirnagl, U., Emerson, M., et al. (2020) · PLOS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000411 · Cited by 2,677 · see citing works
Shotgun metagenomics, from sampling to analysis
Quince, C., Walker, A. W., Simpson, J. T., Loman, N. J., & Segata, N. (2017) · Nature Biotechnology · doi:10.1038/nbt.3935 · Cited by 2,202 · see citing works
Different immune cells mediate mechanical pain hypersensitivity in male and female mice
Sorge, R. E., Mapplebeck, J. C. S., Rosen, S., Beggs, S., Taves, S., Alexander, J. K., Martin, L. J., Austin, J.-S., Sotocinal, S. G., Chen, D., et al. (2015) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nn.4053 · Cited by 1,442 · see citing works
Self-citationSex Differences in Animal Models: Focus on Addiction
Becker, J. B., & Koob, G. F. (2016) · Pharmacological Reviews · doi:10.1124/pr.115.011163 · Cited by 725 · see citing works
Qualitative sex differences in pain processing: emerging evidence of a biased literature
Mogil, J. S. (2020) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41583-020-0310-6 · Cited by 691 · see citing works
Self-citationPicard, M., McManus, M. J., Gray, J. D., Nasca, C., Moffat, C., Kopinski, P. K., Seifert, E. L., McEwen, B. S., & Wallace, D. C. (2015) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1515733112 · Cited by 293 · see citing works
Keiser, A. A., Turnbull, L. M., Darian, M. A., Feldman, D. E., Song, I., & Tronson, N. C. (2017) · Neuropsychopharmacology · doi:10.1038/npp.2016.174 · Cited by 237 · see citing works
Sex inclusion in basic research drives discovery
Klein, S. L., Schiebinger, L., Stefanick, M. L., Cahill, L., Danska, J., de Vries, G. J., Kibbe, M. R., McCarthy, M. M., Mogil, J. S., Woodruff, T. K., et al. (2015) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1502843112 · Cited by 238 · see citing works
Self-citationReproducibility and replicability of rodent phenotyping in preclinical studies
Kafkafi, N., Agassi, J., Chesler, E. J., Crabbe, J. C., Crusio, W. E., Eilam, D., Gerlai, R., Golani, I., Gomez-Marin, A., Heller, R., et al. (2018) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.01.003 · Cited by 215 · see citing works
Human glia can both induce and rescue aspects of disease phenotype in Huntington disease
Benraiss, A., Wang, S., Herrlinger, S., Li, X., Chandler-Militello, D., Mauceri, J., Burm, H. B., Toner, M., Osipovitch, M., Jim Xu, Q., et al. (2016) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms11758 · Cited by 199 · see citing works
Social transfer of pain in mice
Smith, M. L., Hostetler, C. M., Heinricher, M. M., & Ryabinin, A. E. (2016) · Science Advances · doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600855 · Cited by 167 · see citing works
Hohlbaum, K., Bert, B., Dietze, S., Palme, R., Fink, H., & Thöne-Reineke, C. (2017) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0179588 · Cited by 156 · see citing works
Bhargava, A., Arnold, A. P., Bangasser, D. A., Denton, K. M., Gupta, A., Hilliard Krause, L. M., Mayer, E. A., McCarthy, M., Miller, W. L., Raznahan, A., et al. (2021) · Endocrine Reviews · doi:10.1210/endrev/bnaa034 · Cited by 130 · see citing works
Leon, J., Moreno, A. J., Garay, B. I., Chalkley, R. J., Burlingame, A. L., Wang, D., & Dubal, D. B. (2017) · Cell Reports · doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2017.07.024 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Early life stress in rodents: Animal models of illness or resilience?
Murthy, S., & Gould, E. (2018) · Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00157 · Cited by 120 · see citing works
Measuring behavior in the home cage: study design, applications, challenges, and perspectives
Grieco, F., Bernstein, B. J., Biemans, B., Bikovski, L., Burnett, C. J., Cushman, J. D., van Dam, E. A., Fry, S. A., Richmond-Hacham, B., Homberg, J. R., et al. (2021) · Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2021.735387 · Cited by 109 · see citing works
Whyte, L. S., Hemsley, K. M., Lau, A. A., Hassiotis, S., Saito, T., Saido, T. C., Hopwood, J. J., & Sargeant, T. J. (2018) · Behavioural Brain Research · doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2017.09.006 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
Kundu, P., Torres, E. R. S., Stagaman, K., Kasschau, K., Okhovat, M., Holden, S., Ward, S., Nevonen, K. A., Davis, B. A., Saito, T., et al. (2021) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-021-83851-4 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Puścian, A., Łęski, S., Kasprowicz, G., Winiarski, M., Borowska, J., Nikolaev, T., Boguszewski, P. M., Lipp, H.-P., & Knapska, E. (2016) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.19532 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Reduced Complexity Cross Design for Behavioral Genetics
Bryant, C. D., Ferris, M. T., De Villena, F. P. M., Damaj, M. I., Kumar, V., & Mulligan, M. K. (2018) · Molecular-Genetic and Statistical Techniques for Behavioral and Neural Research · doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-804078-2.00008-8 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Sex differences in 50 kHz call subtypes emitted during tickling-induced playful behaviour in rats.
Tivey, E. K. L., Martin, J. E., Brown, S. M., Bombail, V., Lawrence, A. B., & Meddle, S. L. (2022) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-022-19362-7 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
- Authors
- Sorge, R. E., Martin, L. J., Isbester, K. A., Sotocinal, S. G., Rosen, S., Tuttle, A. H., Wieskopf, J. S., Acland, E. L., Dokova, A., Kadoura, B., Leger, P., Mapplebeck, J. C. S., McPhail, M., Delaney, A., Wigerblad, G., Schumann, A. P., Quinn, T., Frasnelli, J., Svensson, C. I., Sternberg, W. F., & Mogil, J. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Alabama (US)
- McGill University (CA)
- Haverford College (US)
- Karolinska Institutet (SE)
- University of Alabama at Birmingham (US)
- Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Mogil, Jeffrey S
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Methods
- Published
- 2014-04-28
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 629-632
- ISSN
- 1548-7091 (ISSN-L)
- 1548-7105
- OpenAlex
- W2030260413
- Cited by
- 905
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 48 · 2025: 52 · 2024: 84 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 82 · 2021: 76 · 2020: 89 · 2019: 72 · 2018: 66 · 2017: 66 · 2016: 85 · 2015: 75 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 126.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Methods (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Health Sciences › Veterinary › Small Animals › Animal testing and alternatives
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- experimenter sex, olfactory cues, stress response, stress-induced analgesia, pain inhibition, sex differences, rodent behavior, confounding variables, human scent, bedding materials, rats
- MeSH terms
- Analgesia, Animals, Female, Humans, Male, Pain, Pain Measurement, Stress, Physiological, Mice, Rats, Olfactory Perception
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
