Have Sexual Pheromones Their Own Reward System in the Brain of Female Mice?

Martínez‐Garciá, Fernando; Agustín-Pavón, Carmen; Martínez-Hernández, José; Martínez‐Ricós, Joana; Moncho-Bogani, José; Novejarque, Amparo; Lanuza, Enrique

doi:10.1007/978-0-387-73945-8_25

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…(b) Experiment 2: naive female response to airborne urinary volatiles Naive female laboratory mice do not show an innate attraction to airborne urinary volatiles from males but learn this attraction during direct contact with involatile components in male scent, resulting in subsequent attraction to airborne volatiles alone (Moncho-Bogani et al 2002). If this process of associative learning results in a simple recognition of male airborne volatiles (Maras & Petrulis 2008;Martinez-Garcia et al 2008), contact with male urine will lead to general recognition of and attraction to airborne volatiles from other intact males.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Encoding choosiness: female attraction requires prior physical contact with individual male scents in mice

2008

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Scents, detected through both the main and vomeronasal olfactory systems, play a crucial role in regulating reproductive behaviour in many mammals. In laboratory mice, female preference for airborne urinary scents from males (detected through the main olfactory system) is learnt through association with scents detected through the vomeronasal system during contact with the scent source. This may reflect a more complex assessment of individual males than that implied by laboratory mouse studies in which individual variation has largely been eliminated. To test this, we assessed female preference between male and female urine using wild house mice with natural individual genetic variation in urinary identity signals. We confirm that females exhibit a general preference for male over female urine when able to contact urine scents. However, they are only attracted to airborne urinary volatiles from individual males whose urine they have previously contacted. Even females with a natural exposure to many individuals of both sexes fail to develop generalized attraction to airborne male scents. This implies that information gained through contact with a specific male's scent is essential to stimulate attraction, providing a new perspective on the cues and olfactory pathways involved in sex recognition and mate assessment in rodents.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If this process of associative learning results in a simple recognition of male airborne volatiles (Maras & Petrulis 2008;Martinez-Garcia et al 2008), contact with male urine will lead to general recognition of and attraction to airborne volatiles from other intact males.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Encoding choosiness: female attraction requires prior physical contact with individual male scents in mice

2008

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“…Consequently, the present results suggest that attraction to odor cues, especially volatile ones, may be normally under limited hormonal control, whereas approach to an active conspecific may depend more on gonadal steroids. Additional support for this idea comes from the finding that the overall levels of investigation of male odors does not vary across the estrous cycle of female hamsters or mice [4,18].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female hamster preference for odors is not regulated by circulating gonadal hormones

Eidson

Maras

Epperson

et al. 2007

Physiology & Behavior

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Proceptive and receptive behaviors of female rodents, such as golden hamsters, are often regulated by changes in circulating levels of ovarian hormones. However, less is known about how ovarian hormones might regulate female hamster's attraction and preference for volatile odor from males. To evaluate this, we assessed female preference by recording investigation and proximity to male and female volatile odorants in a Y-maze across all days of the estrous cycle (Experiments 1 and 2) or following ovariectomy (Experiment 3). In Experiment 1, female subjects were tested four times, once on each day of their estrous cycle. Females showed a preference for male odors on diestrus day 1 and to a lesser degree on proestrus, but showed no preference on the day of behavioral estrus. Irrespective of cycle day, preference was apparent in the first few days of testing and disappeared by the fourth day, suggesting that repeated testing attenuated female preference. To avoid this problem, in Experiment 2 each animal was tested only on one day of the 4-day estrous cycle. Female preference for male volatile odors over those from females was observed on each day of their estrous cycle, including estrus. Moreover, following gonadectomy (Experiment 3) female hamsters still preferred male volatile odors to those of females. Taken together, this suggests that circulating levels of gonadal hormones do not influence preference for male volatile odors in female hamsters.

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