{"doi":"10.1016/j.bbr.2024.114860","title":"Track-by-Day: A standardized approach to estrous cycle monitoring in biobehavioral research","abstract":null,"journal":"Behavioural Brain Research","year":2024,"id":608331,"datarank":0.32958368660043297,"base_score":2.1972245773362196,"endowment":2.1972245773362196,"self_citation_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1562319,"name":"Ashley K. Eng","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1562320,"name":"Murphy P. Kenny","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1562321,"name":"Madison A. Britting","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1562322,"name":"Linnaea E. Ostroff","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1562318,"name":"Gianna M. Raimondi","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Track-by-Day: A standardized approach to estrous cycle monitoring in biobehavioral research","abstract":"Despite known sex differences in brain function, female subjects are underrepresented in preclinical neuroscience research. This is driven in part by concerns about variability arising from estrous cycle-related hormone fluctuations, especially in fear- and anxiety-related research where there are conflicting reports as to whether and how the cycle influences behavior. The inconsistency may arise from a lack of common standards for tracking and reporting the cycle as opposed to inherent unpredictability in the cycle itself. The rat estrous cycle is conventionally tracked by assigning vaginal cytology smears to one of four qualitatively-defined stages. Although the cytology stages are of unequal length, the stage names are often, but not always, used to refer to the four cycle days. Subjective staging criteria and inconsistent use of terminology are not necessarily a problem in research on the cycle itself, but can lead to irreproducibility in neuroscience studies that treat the stages as independent grouping factors. We propose the explicit use of cycle days as independent variables, which we term Track-by-Day to differentiate it from traditional stage-based tracking, and that days be indexed to the only cytology feature that is a direct and rapid consequence of a hormonal event: a cornified cell layer formed in response to the pre-ovulatory 17β-estradiol peak. Here we demonstrate that cycle length is robustly regular with this method, and that the method outperforms traditional staging in detecting estrous cycle effects on Pavlovian fear conditioning and on a separate proxy for hormonal changes, uterine histology.","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":2.1972245773362196,"endowment":2.1972245773362196,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"38216058","pmcid":null,"openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W4390788061","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"National Science Foundation","grant_id":"2014862","title":"NeuroNex: Enabling Identification and Impact of Synaptic Weight in Functional Networks"},{"funder_name":"Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences","grant_id":"","title":null},{"funder_name":"Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation","grant_id":"","title":null}],"total_grants":3,"fwci":2.8928,"citation_percentile":0.90152677,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2023,"count":1},{"year":2024,"count":2},{"year":2025,"count":3},{"year":2026,"count":2}],"oa_status":"closed","license":"CC BY NC","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2024.114860","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38216058","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.08.26.505403","host_type":""}],"fields_of_study":["Sex and Gender in Healthcare","Reproductive System and Pregnancy","Stress Responses and Cortisol","0301 basic medicine","0303 health sciences","03 medical and health sciences","Humans","Rats","Female","Male","Animals","Estrous Cycle","Vagina","Estradiol","Fear"],"mesh_terms":["Animals","Estradiol","Fear","Female","Humans","Male","Vagina","Estrous Cycle","Rats"],"keywords":["Estrous cycle","Psychology","Anxiety","Menstrual cycle","Physiology","Hormone","Neuroscience","Developmental psychology","Biology","Endocrinology","Psychiatry","Sex differences","Fear Conditioning","Male","Estradiol","Fear","Rats","Vagina","Humans","Animals","Female"],"sdg_mappings":[{"sdg_number":3,"sdg_label":"3. Good health"},{"sdg_number":10,"sdg_label":"10. No inequality"},{"sdg_number":0,"sdg_label":"Good health and well-being"}],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-30T11:56:39.436407Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}