Journal
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 24, Issue 25, Pages 5719-5725Publisher
SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1139-04.2004
Keywords
amygdala; vomeronasal; hamster; medial nucleus; pheromone; accessory olfactory bulb
Categories
Funding
- NIDCD NIH HHS [F31 DC05725, T32 DC00044, R01 DC005813, DC 005813, F31 DC005725, T32 DC000044] Funding Source: Medline
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Chemosignals related to reproductive and social status (pheromones) carry messages between opposite-sex and same-sex individuals in many species. Each individual must distinguish signals relevant to its own social behavior with conspecifics from signals used by other (heterospecific) species relevant to their social behavior. In male hamsters, the medial amygdala responded in a categorically different way to conspecific stimuli (socially relevant) and heterospecific stimuli (not socially relevant but serving similar purposes for other species), and may play an important role in this decision. Immediate-early gene responses to conspecific chemosignals and heterospecific chemosignals were characteristically different. The categorical responses, generated by chemosensory input from the vomeronasal organ and (probably) GABA inhibition within the amygdala, were not apparent at more peripheral sensory levels. This is the first evidence for an important role of the amygdala, a limbic structure known to be involved in social and emotional behavior, in discrimination of species specificity in chemosignals.
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