The vomeronasal system is crucial for social and sexual communication in mammals. Two populations of vomeronasal sensory neurons, each expressing Gai2 or Gao proteins, send projections to glomeruli of the rostral or caudal accessory olfactory bulb, rAOB and cAOB, respectively. In rodents, the Gai2-and Gao-expressing vomeronasal pathways have shown differential responses to small ⁄ volatile vs. large ⁄ non-volatile semiochemicals, respectively. Moreover, early gene expression suggests predominant activation of rAOB and cAOB neurons in sexual vs. aggressive contexts, respectively. We recently described the AOB of Octodon degus, a semiaridinhabiting diurnal caviomorph. Their AOB has a cell indentation between subdomains and the rAOB is twice the size of the cAOB. Moreover, their AOB receives innervation from the lateral aspect, contrasting with the medial innervation of all other mammals examined to date. Aiming to relate AOB anatomy with lifestyle, we performed a morphometric study on the AOB of the capybara, a semiaquatic caviomorph whose lifestyle differs remarkably from that of O. degus. Capybaras mate in water and scent-mark their surroundings with oily deposits, mostly for male-male communication. We found that, similar to O. degus, the AOB of capybaras shows a lateral innervation of the vomeronasal nerve, a cell indentation between subdomains and heterogeneous subdomains, but in contrast to O. degus the caudal portion is larger than the rostral one. We also observed that four other caviomorph species present a lateral AOB innervation and a cell indentation between AOB subdomains, suggesting that those traits could represent apomorphies of the group. We propose that although some AOB traits may be phylogenetically conserved in caviomorphs, ecological specializations may play an important role in shaping the AOB.

Thrombosis is a result of the interaction between predisposing genetic polymorphisms Rev. Bras. Hematol. Hemoter. 2009;31(3):143-146.

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