Test of immunocompetence handicap hypothesis in mice (<i>Mus musculus</i>) infected with <i>Trichinella spiralis</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ICHH) proposes that testosterone enhances the expression of sexual traits but suppresses immune function. However, studies to test the hypothesis have shown mixed results. Alternatively, sexual traits, immune function, and parasite susceptibility may be mediated by the stress hormone corticosterone. Here, we report an experimental test of the ICHH that included the manipulation of both testosterone and parasites in male laboratory mice (Mus musculus L., 1758). We conducted a factorial experiment, injecting each individual mouse with testosterone or not and infecting them with the nematode parasite Trichinella spiralis (Owen, 1835) or not. As predicted, testosterone enhanced the scent attractiveness of male mice, whereas parasite infection reduced it, but only in male mice not injected with testosterone. However, we found no evidence that corticosterone is involved in mediating the effects of testosterone. These results confirm that maintaining high testosterone levels entails the cost of increased parasite abundance. This study provides direct evidence supporting the ICHH.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".