Male mice ultrasonic vocalizations enhance female sexual approach and hypothalamic kisspeptin neuron activity

Female mice exhibit both sexual and social partner preferences for vocalizing males

“…In accordance with this hypothesis, previous studies found that female mice preferred to stay longer with vocalizing males than with devocalized males, and female mice approached the source of male USVs (Pomerantz et al 1983;Hammerschmidt et al 2009;Asaba et al 2017). These results indicated that female mice have a social partner preference for vocalizing males.…”

Emerging Roles of Kisspeptin in Sexual and Emotional Brain Processing

“…1). Kisspeptin signalling is required for male olfactory partner preference [30], is enhanced by opposite-sex urinary odours [32,33], modulates mate preference [31], enhances auditory-reproductive behaviour [34], dampens fear responses [36], modulates anxiety [31,36,42], has antidepressant-like effects [40,44], and triggers erections [51]. Furthermore, in healthy heterosexual men, kisspeptin enhances limbic and paralimbic brain activity specifically in response to visual-evoked sexual and romantic stimuli and these enhancements correlate with behavioural measures including sexual aversion, reward, and mood [40].…”

“…A recent study demonstrated that male mice typically emit song-like "ultrasonic vocalisations" (USVs) in response to females, which results in their subsequent approach. Furthermore, the presence of males USVs increased the number of subsequent offspring compared to the absence of USVs (by devocalisation) [34]. Interestingly, male USVs increased female kisspeptin neuronal activity (determined by pCREB expression [phosphorylation of Cyclic AMP Response Element Binding]) in the ARC (but not the AVPV), which correlated with duration of female searching behaviour for the speaker (i.e., the male) [34].…”

“…Furthermore, the presence of males USVs increased the number of subsequent offspring compared to the absence of USVs (by devocalisation) [34]. Interestingly, male USVs increased female kisspeptin neuronal activity (determined by pCREB expression [phosphorylation of Cyclic AMP Response Element Binding]) in the ARC (but not the AVPV), which correlated with duration of female searching behaviour for the speaker (i.e., the male) [34]. Together with data demonstrating kisspeptin receptor expression in the dorsal cochlear nucleus [23], this suggests a role for kisspeptin in auditory reproductive processing.…”

“…This included the anterior and posterior cingulate, amygdala, thalamus, and globus pallidus, which are all implicated in romantic, maternal, and unconditional love [53][54][55][56] and consistent with structures known to be involved in kisspeptin signalling in humans [19,20] and rodents [10,15,21,23,24]. Interestingly, kisspeptins enhanced activation of the amygdala in response to bonding images correlated with improved positive mood [40], a Sexual behaviours -Enhances limbic and paralimbic brain activity with correlations to reward, sexual aversion, and positive mood (H) [40] -Triggers erections (R) [51] Fear -Reduces fear responses (Z) [36][37][38]43] Social behaviours -MeA kisspeptin neurone apposition with dopaminergic and vasopressinergic neurones (R) [24] Audition -Male rodent ultrasonic vocalisations increase female ARC kisspeptin activity which correlates to the duration of female searching for male (R) [34] Mood -Antidepressant-like effects (R, H) [40,44] -Anxiolytic effects (R, Z) [31,36] -Anxiogenic effects (R) [42] Olfaction -Kisspeptin anatomical framework (R, H) [24] -Kiss1r and MeA Kiss1 roles in male olfactory partner preference (R) [30,31] -Opposite-sex urinary odours stimulate RP3V and limbic kisspeptin neurones and enhance LH surge (R) [32,33] Kisspeptin signalling potential mechanism that may contribute to the desire to bond with a partner.…”