Journal
HORMONES AND BEHAVIOR
Volume 41, Issue 2, Pages 213-219Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1006/hbeh.2001.1749
Keywords
pheromones; brain sexual differentiation; main olfactory system
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Funding
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH [R01MH059200] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
- NIMH NIH HHS [MH59200] Funding Source: Medline
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Volatile urinary odors from opposite sex conspecifics contribute to mate recognition in numerous mammalian species, including mice. We used a simple habituation/dishabituation testing procedure to ask whether the capacity to detect and investigate decreasing concentrations of volatile urinary odors is sexually differentiated in mice. Beginning 2 months after gonadectomy and in the absence of any sex steroid treatment, adult, sexually naive male and female CBA x C57BI/6 F1 hybrid mice received two series of daily tests that involved the presentation of different dilutions of urine from C57BI/6 males followed by urine from estrous females. Each test session began with three consecutive presentations of deionized water (10 mul on filter paper for 2 min, behind a mesh barrier which prevented direct physical access, in the home cage at 1-min intervals) followed by three presentations of one of five different dilutions of urine (a different dilution on each test day). Males and females showed equivalent, significant habituation/dishabituation responses (low investigation times for successive water presentations; increased investigation of the first urine stimulus, followed by a decline in successive urine investigation times) to both male and female urine/water dilutions of 1:1, 1:10, and 1:20. However, only female mice responded reliably to 1:40 and 1:80 dilutions of both types of urine, pointing to a sex dimorphism in the detection and/or processing of biologically relevant, volatile urinary odors by the main olfactory system. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).
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