Holly et. al (2012)

Holly et. al (2012) looked into sex differences when female and male rats were given cocaine. The findings show that females in their estrus phase of reproduction show significantly higher walk duration than all of the other groups. Another key major finding of this paper was that, female rats were more likely to exhibit binge cocaine behavior if they were previously stressed. This was the first paper this semester that specifically focused on and stressed sex differences in their response to cocaine administration. This research is valuable, because it shows that using different sexes of animals may show different outcomes of the behavior. Most of the research focuses primarily on male rats so this may not be necessarily be translatable to women. Holly et. al (2012) also exposes some of the differences in the social-defeat paradigm between male and female mice. This study kept the criteria for the test the same as far as the amount of attacks and types of attacks. The females generally attacked the face, forelimbs, and flanks, whereas the males primarily attacked the back and necks. This is interesting an important to note, because even the types of animal models we use in research of different diseases and disorders may exhibit some variability across genders. It makes me wonder if an animal model needs to apply to both genders in order to be viable. Although, I know this is an unrealistic expectation due to behavioral, hormonal, and anatomical differences between genders.