Update of Results 12/26/2018
Summary: there appears to be an effect of fluoxetine on rabbit ovaries that we see 1 day after copulation. One is, that fewer ovulations are induced by the copulation in fluoxetine treated animals, the effect we predicted based on the hypothesis of homology with female orgasm. There is no significant effect on developing follicles, or on hemorrhagic nonovulated ones (HUFs, these appear normally in rabbits) but there is an effect on the number of older atretic folicles (=dead ones)- there are more in treated animals. Some of this effect may also be caused locally, e.g. by the local changes of serotonin in the ovarian tissue, rather than its change in the nervous system. We will follow this up and already have an experimental design that will address this issue. In addition, it appears that fluoxetine clears from the rabbit system much faster than it does in humans, hence our dosage is likely on the lower side, compared to humans. Finally, thumbs up to the student and technician in the Pavlicev lab who did a really good job with experiments!
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