Electroejaculation in the Male Rat

Sung Hyun Paick; Byung Ki Lee; Sung Wook Yoon; Minki Baek; Hyeong Gon Kim; Eun Young Song; Young Soo Lyoo; Yong Soo Lho

doi:10.4111/kju.2008.49.3.266

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Paick, Lee, Yoon, Baek, Kim, Song, Lyoo, and Lho: Electroejaculation in the Male Rat

Original Article

Korean J Urol 2008;49(3):266-270.

Published online: 17 January 2008

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4111/kju.2008.49.3.266

Electroejaculation in the Male Rat

Sung Hyun Paick, Byung Ki Lee, Sung Wook Yoon, Minki Baek, Hyeong Gon Kim, Eun Young Song¹, Young Soo Lyoo², Yong Soo Lho

^¹Departments of Urology and Laboratory Medicine, College of Medicine, Korea

^²Department of Veterinary Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea

교신저자: 노용수 건국대학교 의과대학 비뇨기과학교실 서울특별시 광진구 화양동 4-12 143-914, TEL: 02-2030-5310, FAX: 02-2030-5319 E-mail: yslho@kuh.ac.kr

Revised 25 October 2007 Accepted 19 January 2008

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

We examined the possibility of electroejaculation for the evaluation of fertility in the male rat.

Materials and Methods

Ten 8-week-old Sprague-Dawley male rats that underwent seminal vesiculectomy were used for semen collection by electroejaculation. With a transrectal probe (60Hz, 3V, 0.5A), sign wave electric stimulation was applied to an anesthetized rat. Ejaculated semen was collected by a pipette and the volume and sperm density of the ejaculate were analyzed. Two weeks later, a second electroejaculation was performed under the same conditions with the same rats.

Results

At the first attempt, all 10 rats ejaculated following electric stimulation. The mean semen volume was 8.9μl (range, 3.0-28.5μl) and the mean sperm density was 6,428/ml (range, 320-20,997/ml). At the second attempt, only 7 of 10 rats (70%) ejaculated. The mean semen volume was 5.6μl (range, 3.3-8.6μl) and the mean sperm density was 2,801/ml (range, 227-12,555/ml).

Conclusions

These results indicated that electroejaculation has the possibility of being a useful method for evaluation of fertility in the male rat.

Keywords: Electric stimulation, Ejaculation, Fertility, Rats

REFERENCES

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Fig. 1.

The transrectal probe (hand-made) for electroejaculation in the male rat.

Fig. 2.

The electrical stimulator for electroejaculation in the male rat.

Fig. 3.

Changes of sperm density for the first and second attempts for electroejaculation.

Table 1.

Volume and sperm concentration of semen obtained with electroejaculation

Rat	1st try		2nd try
Rat	Volume (μl)	Sperm density (/ml)	Volume (μl)	Sperm density (/ml)
1	9.9	862	0	0
2	9.8	320	5.8	1,130
3	4.4	14,465	8.6	2,044
4	3.3	20,997	0	0
5	3.0	1,546	7.8	723
6	28.5	682	0	0
7	15.3	1,003	6.2	227
8	5.4	7,284	4.0	12,555
9	3.0	530	3.5	2,446
10	6.2	16,588	3.3	485
Mean	8.9	6,428	5.6	2,801

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