Sexual incentive motivation, sexual behavior, and general arousal: Do rats and humans tell the same story?

Ågmo, Anders; Laan, Ellen

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104595

Cited by 29 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 421 publications

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“…Despite the contradictory results, it is well accepted that female rats emit more calls when interacting with male vs. female conspecifics (White et al, 1993 ; Armas et al, 2021 ), probably signaling sexual motivation towards the male (Börner et al, 2016 ) and that male USVs can trigger female solicitation behavior (McIntosh et al, 1978 ), including ear wiggling and darting behavior. Solicitation behaviors seem to be rewarding for both sexes (Martínez and Paredes, 2001 ) and increase male sexual arousal, hence activating male mounting behavior with a shorter latency (Chu and Ågmo, 2015b ; Ågmo and Laan, 2022 ) and pointing to a certain choice from the male towards the female.…”

Section: Contribution Of Ultrasonic Vocalizations To the Evaluation A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice

Lenschow

Mendes

Lima

2022

Front. Neural Circuits

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Mate choice is a potent generator of diversity and a fundamental pillar for sexual selection and evolution. Mate choice is a multistage affair, where complex sensory information and elaborate actions are used to identify, scrutinize, and evaluate potential mating partners. While widely accepted that communication during mate assessment relies on multimodal cues, most studies investigating the mechanisms controlling this fundamental behavior have restricted their focus to the dominant sensory modality used by the species under examination, such as vision in humans and smell in rodents. However, despite their undeniable importance for the initial recognition, attraction, and approach towards a potential mate, other modalities gain relevance as the interaction progresses, amongst which are touch and audition. In this review, we will: (1) focus on recent findings of how touch and audition can contribute to the evaluation and choice of mating partners, and (2) outline our current knowledge regarding the neuronal circuits processing touch and audition (amongst others) in the context of mate choice and ask (3) how these neural circuits are connected to areas that have been studied in the light of multisensory integration.

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Section: Contribution Of Ultrasonic Vocalizations To the Evaluation A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice

Lenschow

Mendes

Lima

2022

Front. Neural Circuits

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“…Second, it is also likely that associations between dopamine function and alterations in copulatory behavior observed in these rat sub-lines, also take place in humans. Although it is difficult to translate rodents’ sexual behavior parameters to human sexual behavior, this is highly likely and would be also not surprising (see [ 318 ]). Indeed, (i) a relationship between hypersexual behavior (e.g., excessive sexual behavior associated with decreased ability of a person in controlling his/her sexual behavior) and personality traits has been long discussed in research and clinical practice (see [ 319 ] and references therein), and (ii) relations between trait impulsivity (i.e., sensation seeking), behavioral impulsivity (i.e., behavioral risk-taking) and high levels of sexual arousal and risky sexual behavior [that lead to negative long term consequences, e.g., unplanned pregnancy, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission and other sexually transmitted diseases] have been often reported among young men and women ([ 320 , 321 ] and enclosed references).…”

Section: Final Remarksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dopamine, Erectile Function and Male Sexual Behavior from the Past to the Present: A Review

2022

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Early and recent studies show that dopamine through its neuronal systems and receptor subtypes plays different roles in the control of male sexual behavior. These studies show that (i) the mesolimbic/mesocortical dopaminergic system plays a key role in the preparatory phase of sexual behavior, e.g., in sexual arousal, motivation and reward, whereas the nigrostriatal system controls the sensory-motor coordination necessary for copulation, (ii) the incertohypothalamic system is involved in the consummatory aspects of sexual behavior (penile erection and copulation), but evidence for its role in sexual motivation is also available, (iii) the pro-sexual effects of dopamine occur in concert with neural systems interconnecting the hypothalamus and preoptic area with the spinal cord, ventral tegmental area and other limbic brain areas and (iv) D2 and D4 receptors play a major role in the pro-sexual effects of dopamine. Despite some controversy, increases or decreases, respectively, of brain dopamine activity induced by drugs or that occur physiologically, usually improves or worsens, respectively, sexual activity. These findings suggest that an altered central dopaminergic tone plays a role in mental pathologies characterized by aberrant sexual behavior, and that pro-erectile D4 receptor agonists may be considered a new strategy for the treatment of erectile dysfunction in men.

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“…Sexual motivation is a fundamental propellant of behavior, grounded in well-described neurobiological circuits and endocrine dynamics (Ågmo & Laan, 2022;Georgiadis et al, 2012;Janssen, 2007), affecting physiology, affect, attention, and cognition (e.g., Hoffmann, 2017;Toates, 2009), and contributing to functional and dysfunctional sexual outcomes (Ågmo, 2007). However, the measurement of sexual motivation can be challenging (e.g., Pfaus, 2007).…”

Section: Developing a Causally Valid Picture-story Measure Of Sexual ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One consequence of this view is that if sexual incentive cues are held constant, one can gauge an individual's central motive state from the degree of her or his response to the cues. Incentive motivation theories also posit a positive feedback loop between the central motive state and incentives such that (sexual) incentives transiently turn on or increase the central motive state itself, making it easier for subsequently encountered incentives to elicit motivational responses (Ågmo & Laan, 2022;Toates, 1986). Hinzmann et al (submitted) made use of both of these aspects of incentive motivation theory.…”

Section: Developing a Causally Valid Picture-story Measure Of Sexual ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a Causally Valid Picture-Story Measure of Sexual Motivation: II. Effects of film clips

Schultheiss¹,

Hinzmann²

2022

Preprint

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Replicating and extending previous work by Hinzmann et al. (submitted), the present research aimed at validating a picture-story measure of sexual motivation, termed need for sex (nSex). In two experimental studies (Ns = 154 and 171) with repeated-measures design, we showed that (a) nSex is sensitive to experimental manipulation of sexual motivation via film clips, (b) that this effect is mediated by increased subjective arousal as an indicator of a motivational process, and (c) that the part of nSex variance that is sensitive for experimental manipulation is also the one accounting for variations in a behavioral criterion (key pressing and viewing time measures of relative preference for erotic over non-erotic pictures). These effects emerged specifically when film clips portrayed sex positively, but not when they showed sex with embarrassing or threatening consequences. As a dispositional measure, nSex correlated positively with self-report measures of sexual desire and behavior. But it did not feature the sex difference associated with these measures and retained incremental validity above and beyond them for behavioral criterion measures.

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Sexual incentive motivation, sexual behavior, and general arousal: Do rats and humans tell the same story?

Cited by 29 publications

References 421 publications

Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice

Hearing, touching, and multisensory integration during mate choice

Dopamine, Erectile Function and Male Sexual Behavior from the Past to the Present: A Review

Developing a Causally Valid Picture-Story Measure of Sexual Motivation: II. Effects of film clips

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