Low testosterone promotes anxiety through astrocytic mitochondrial remodelling at the nucleus accumbens blood-brain barrier

Studied

An animal experiment tested whether testosterone changes anxiety-like behaviour through brain-support cells and the blood–brain barrier.

Who / model

Male rats were grouped by naturally occurring anxiety-like behaviour, with additional work in older rats with low testosterone. Sample sizes and experiment durations are not stated.

Studied dose & schedule

Dose and schedule have not yet been extracted for this summary.

Found

Suppressing testosterone increased anxiety-like behaviour; restoring physiological levels reduced it and improved brain-barrier measures. Reducing local androgen-receptor activity weakened these responses. Increasing mitofusin 2 in brain-support cells also reduced anxiety-like behaviour. These findings concern rats.

Limits

Study limitations were not stated in the abstract. Methodological quality has not been appraised.

Read summary source ↗ · Prepared 9/15/2026 · AI-assisted, source-based summary