Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Hormones and Behavior, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Previous research showed that ferrets of both sexes rely on the perception of conspecifics’ body odors to identify and motivate approach towards opposite-sex mating partners, and exposure to male body odors stimulated Fos expression in an olfactory projection circuit of female, but not male, ferrets that terminates in the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMH). We asked whether the female-typical preference of ferrets to approach male as opposed to female body odors in Y-maze tests would be disrupted by VMH lesions. Sexually experienced female ferrets were ovo-hysterectomized prior to receiving bilateral electrolytic lesions of the VMH, the preoptic area/anterior hypothalamus (POA/AH) or a sham operation. Subsequently, while receiving estradiol benzoate, females that received either complete or partial bilateral lesions of the VMH approached volatile odors from an anesthetized male on significantly fewer trials than females given POA/AH lesions or a sham operation. Both groups of ferrets with VMH lesion damage reliably discriminated between volatile anal scents as well as urinary odors from the 2 sexes in home cage habituation/dishabituation tests, suggesting that their odor-based sex discrimination remained intact. Females with complete bilateral VMH lesions showed significantly lower acceptance of neck gripping from a stimulus male (receptivity) and more aggression towards the male than all other groups of female subjects. Estrogen-sensitive neurons in the VMH appear to play a central role in female-typical neural processing of odor inputs leading to a preference to seek out a male sex partner, in addition to facilitating females’ sexual receptivity.

Ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus lesions disrupt olfactory mate recognition and receptivity in female ferrets

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Hormones and Behavior, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Individual recognition is an important component of behaviors, such as mate choice and maternal bonding that are vital for reproductive success. This article highlights recent developments in our understanding of the chemosensory cues and the neural pathways involved in individuality discrimination in rodents. There appear to be several types of chemosensory signal of individuality that are influenced by the highly polymorphic families of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins or major urinary proteins (MUPs). Both have the capability of binding small molecules and may influence the individual profile of these chemosignals in biological fluids such as urine, skin secretions, or saliva. Moreover, these proteins, or peptides associated with them, can be taken up into the vomeronasal organ (VNO) where they can potentially interact directly with the vomeronasal receptors. This is particularly interesting given the expression of major histocompatibility complex Ib proteins by the V2R class of vomeronasal receptor and the highly selective responses of accessory olfactory bulb (AOB) mitral cells to strain identity. These findings are consistent with the role of the vomeronasal system in mediating individual discrimination that allows mate recognition in the context of the pregnancy block effect. This is hypothesized to involve a selective increase in the inhibitory control of mitral cells in the accessory olfactory bulb at the first level of processing of the vomeronasal stimulus.

The nose knows who’s who: chemosensory individuality and mate recognition in mice