A battery of olfactory-based screens for phenotyping the social and sexual behaviors of mice

Ferkin, Michael H.; Li, Hong Z.

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2005.05.014

Cited by 23 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…As known previously (31), WT females were more attracted by pheromones present in the genital areas of the opposite sex than by those from the same sex: when given a choice between adult male genital excretion and estrous female genital excretion smeared on two sides of a slide, more Lmx1b +/+ and Lmx1b +/− females sniffed genital odor from males longer than from that of estrous females ( Fig. 2A), whereas a significantly lower percentage of Lmx1b −/− females sniffed male genital odor longer than female genital odor ( Fig.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 59%

Serotonin signaling in the brain of adult female mice is required for sexual preference

Zhang

Liu

Rao

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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A role for serotonin in male sexual preference was recently uncovered by our finding that male mutant mice lacking serotonin have lost sexual preference. Here we show that female mouse mutants lacking either central serotonergic neurons or serotonin prefer female over male genital odors when given a choice, and displayed increased female-female mounting when presented either with a choice of a male and a female target or only with a female target. Pharmacological manipulations and genetic rescue experiments showed that serotonin is required in adults. Behavioral changes caused by deficient serotonergic signaling were not due to changes in plasma concentrations of sex hormones. We demonstrate that a genetic manipulation reverses sexual preference without involving sex hormones. Our results indicate that serotonin controls sexual preference.sexual behaviors | neurotransmitter | Tph2 knockout S exual behaviors are among the most important social behaviors. Although preference for the opposite sex is essential for reproduction, sexual behaviors toward members of the same sex have been observed in many animal species, indicating that there are potential evolutionary advantages (1, 2). The diversity of sexual preference has been of scientific interest to scholars from Aristotle to present-day scientists (2, 3).Biologically, changes in sex hormones can change sexual behavior or sexual preference, resulting in either a loss of sexual preference or a reversal of sexual preference (4-14). Although a genetic component for homosexual orientation has been suggested (15), no specific genes have been identified in sexual preference in humans (16)(17)(18)(19)(20).Same-sex preference was reported in female mice lacking the gene encoding estrogen-binding plasma protein alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) or those lacking the gene for aromatase through indirect effects on sex hormones (11,12,14,21). Pheromone perception is important for sexual behaviors. Surgical removal of the vomeronasal organ or genetic inactivation of transient receptor potential channel 2 (TrpC2), which encodes a cation channel in the vomeronasal organ (22, 23), or cyclic nucleotide-gated channel α2 (Cgna2) in the main olfactory epithelium (24) resulted in loss of sexual preference in male mice. TrpC2 −/− mutant females showed female-female mounting behavior (13, 25). There was an overall reduction of sexual behavior in Cgna2 mutant mice (19). However, none of these mice has been shown to prefer the same sex.Our recent genetic studies have shown that 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) in the male mouse brain is required for sexual preference because there was no sexual preference in mutant male mice lacking serotonergic neurons or 5-HT (26). We have now carried out experiments to determine whether 5-HT is involved in female sexual preference. Here we report a crucial role of serotonergic signaling in female sexual preference: strikingly, sexually differential olfactory preference indicated by several assays was reversed in female mice lacking serotonergic neurons or those unable...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 59%

Serotonin signaling in the brain of adult female mice is required for sexual preference

Zhang

Liu

Rao

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Findings on habituation of scent marking to a familiar conspecific add to a body of findings (Arakawa et al, 2007(Arakawa et al, , 2008 suggesting that scent marking in mice may provide a useful model for research on the physiology and pathology of communication in this species, complementary to mouse social recognition paradigms (Crawley et al, 1997;Crawley, 2004;Moy et al, 2004Moy et al, , 2007 that have been used for a variety of models associated with neurocognitive disorders including autism (Qiu et al, 2006;Tueting et al, 2006), Fragile Â syndrome (Mineur et al, 2006;Spencer et al, 2005), and Rett syndrome (Moretti et al, 2005;Shahbazian et al, 2002) (cf. Ferkin andLi, 2005). Present findings that conditioned or unconditioned emotional responses to predator odors are capable of reducing initial scent-mark signaling (i.e., scent marking in the absence of conspecific scent) additionally suggest the potential use of this paradigm as a probe to assay motivations associated with scent marking behaviors.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 68%

Scent marking behavior as an odorant communication in mice

Arakawa

Blanchard

Arakawa

et al. 2008

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

202

149

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In rodents, where chemical signals play a particularly important role in determining intraspecies interactions including social dominance and intersexual relationships, various studies have shown that behavior is sensitive to conspecific odor cues. Mice use urinary scent marks for communication with individual conspecifics in many social contexts. Urinary scent involves genetic information about individuals such as species, sex, and individual identity as well as metabolic information such as social dominance, and reproductive and health status, which are mediated by chemical proteins in scent marks including the major histocompatibility complex and the major urinary proteins. The odor of the predator which can be considered to be a threatening signal for the prey also modulate mouse behavior in which scent marking is suppressed in response to the cat odor exposure in mice. These odorant chemicals are detected and recognized through two olfactory bulbs, the role of which in detection of chemosignals with biological relevant appears to be differential, but partly overlapped. Mice deposit scent marks toward conspecifics to maintain their social relationships, and inhibit scent marking in a context where natural predator, cat odor is contained. This suppression of scent marking is long-lasting (for at least 7 days) and context-dependent, while the odorant signaling to conspecifics tends to appear frequently (over 24h but less than 7 days intervals) depending on the familiarity of each signal-recipient. It has been discussed that scent marking is a communicative behavior associated with territoriality toward conspecifics, indicating that the social signaling within species are sensitive to predator odor cues in terms of vulnerability to predation risk.

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“…The present study demonstrated that C57 as well as CD-1 mice display good social recognition as indexed by scent marking behavior. As olfaction is the primary sensory modality of mice, and mice use scent marks to communicate with conspecifics [12,19,45], scent marking may provide a particularly relevant situation for evaluation of social communication in mice, including specific behaviors that may be responsive to factors related to social psychopathologies [8,23]. The total number of urine marked squares for (a) C57 males exposed to CD-1 males (experiment 1); (b) CD-1 males exposed to CD-1 or a C57 male (experiment 2); (c) CD-1 males exposed to CD-1 males (experiment 2); and (d) C57 males (experiment 3).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new test paradigm for social recognition evidenced by urinary scent marking behavior in C57BL/6J mice

Arakawa

Blanchard

et al. 2008

Behavioural Brain Research

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Olfaction is a major sensory element in intraspecies recognition and communication in mice. The present study investigated scent marking behaviors of males of the highly inbred C57BL/6J (C57) strain in order to evaluate the ability of these behaviors to provide clear and consistent measures of social familiarity and response to social signals. C57 males engage in scent marking when placed in a chamber with a wire mesh partition separating them from a conspecific. Male mice (C57 or outbred CD-1 mice) showed rapid habituation of scent marking (decreased marking over trials) with repeated exposure at 24-hr intervals, to a stimulus animal of the C57 or CD-1 strains, or to an empty chamber. Subsequent exposure to a genetically different novel mouse (CD-1 after CD-1 exposure, or CD-1 after C57 exposure) or to a novel context (different shaped chamber) produced recovery of marking, while responses to a novel but genetically identical mouse (C57 after C57 exposure) or to the empty chamber did not. This finding demonstrated that male mice differentiate familiar and novel conspecifics as expressed by habituation and recovery of scent marking, but neither C57 or CD-1 mice can differentiate new vs. familiar C57 males; likely due to similarities in their odor patterns. The data also indicate that scent marking can differentiate novel from familiar contexts.

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A battery of olfactory-based screens for phenotyping the social and sexual behaviors of mice

Cited by 23 publications

References 52 publications

Serotonin signaling in the brain of adult female mice is required for sexual preference

Serotonin signaling in the brain of adult female mice is required for sexual preference

Scent marking behavior as an odorant communication in mice

A new test paradigm for social recognition evidenced by urinary scent marking behavior in C57BL/6J mice

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