[Animal experimental studies on the effects of noise stress on male fertility]

Psychic stress is able to cause male infertility. Stieve found out aspermatogenesis in executed men. Cockett et al. immobilized 5 Macaca-Monkeys 15 to 40 days in capsule module under simulated space flight conditions and detected severe testicular degeneration. Carosi and Calabro reported about workers exposed to industrial noise over a period of years; the number of offspring was found to be much lower than in non exposed families. We examined the effect of noise on the fertility of 21 male guinea pigs. Sounding of 110 dB lasted 3-5 hours daily over a period of 22-31 days. Histological examination of the testicular tissue did not show any disorder of spermatogenesis. We believe that the negative result is attributed to failings in the test arrangement. Sounding only lasted for a maximum of 31 days. However, the duration of spermatogenesis in guinea pigs is about 40 days. Moreover the sounding maximum was only 5 hours per day, yet the time of recovery took 4-5 times longer every day. Consequently the daily short-term depression of the neuroendrocrinium affected the gonadotropine secretion in similarity to the daily biorhythmic variation. Therefore the expected inhibition of fertility by the neuroendrocrinic way could not be demonstrated. Our experiments also revealed another problem. In noise-exposed guinea pigs there was 8.2 per cent tubuli contorti without complete spermatogenesis. Moreover, in the control group even 9.9 per cent of the tubuli was found to be sperm-free. It is not clear why such a contrary reaction occurred. However, it is possible that hormonal stimulation increased temporarily as a result of noise stress. It should be noted that this effect has also been reported by Arguellis.