Stefan S du Plessis, Kartikeya Makker, Nisarg R Desai and Ashok Agarwal† †Author for correspondence Center for Reproductive Medicine, Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute and Ob–Gyn and Women’s Health Institute, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Desk A19.1, Cleveland, OH 44195, USA Tel.: +1 216 444 9485 Fax: +1 216 445 6049 [email protected] Gametes and embryos are natural sources of free...

Seasonal changes in stress steroid hormone secretions are thought to reflect investment in self-maintenance versus reproduction. The capricious conditions hypothesis (CCH) posits that reduced corticosterone (CORT) secretion during stress coincident with parental phases of breeding is necessary in harsh environments because a full response would otherwise trigger repeated nest abandonments. To t...

Chronic anxiety, depression or physical exertion-associated stress consistently activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Each individual component of the HPA axis, such as CRH, ACTH, β-endorphin or glucocorticoid exerts deleterious effect on the hypo-thalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis and subsequently leads to reproductive failure. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) secret...

To ensure long-term reproductive success organisms have to cope with harsh environmental extremes. A reproductive strategy that simply maximizes offspring production is likely to be disadvantageous because it could lead to a catastrophic loss of fecundity under unfavorable conditions. To understand how an appropriate balance is achieved, we investigated reproductive performance of C. elegans un...

Winter is often stressful. Increased energetic demands in winter and concurrent reductions in energy availability can lead to an energetic imbalance and compromise survival. To increase the odds of surviving winter, individuals of some nontropical rodent species have evolved mechanisms to enhance immune function in advance of harsh winter conditions. Short day lengths provide a proximate cue fo...