The Journal of Neuroscience, May 1, 2001, 21(9):3236-3241
The Role of Dopamine in the Nucleus Accumbens and Striatum during
Sexual Behavior in the Female Rat
Jill B.
Becker1, 2,
Charles N.
Rudick1, and
William J.
Jenkins1
1 Psychology Department, and 2 Reproductive
Sciences Program and Neuroscience Program, The University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Dopamine in dialysate from the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) increases
during sexual and feeding behavior and after administration of drugs of
abuse, even those that do not directly activate dopaminergic systems
(e.g., morphine or nicotine). These findings and others have led to
hypotheses that propose that dopamine is rewarding, predicts that
reinforcement will occur, or attributes incentive salience. Examining
increases in dopamine in NAcc or striatum during sexual behavior in
female rats provides a unique situation to study these relations. This
is because, for the female rat, sexual behavior is associated with an
increase in NAcc dopamine and conditioned place preference only under
certain testing conditions. This experiment was conducted to determine
what factors are important for the increase in dopamine in dialysate
from NAcc and striatum during sexual behavior in female rats. The
factors considered were the number of contacts by the male, the timing
of contacts by the male, or the ability of the female to control
contacts by the male. The results indicate that increased NAcc dopamine is dependent on the timing of copulatory stimuli, independent of
whether the female rat is actively engaged in regulating this timing.
For the striatum, the timing of copulatory behavior influences the
magnitude of the increase in dopamine in dialysate, but other factors
are also involved. We conclude that increased extracellular dopamine in
the NAcc and striatum conveys qualitative or interpretive information
about the rewarding value of stimuli. Sexual behavior in the female rat
is proposed as a model to determine the role of dopamine in motivated behavior.
Key words:
dopamine; microdialysis; nucleus accumbens; striatum; motivation; sexual behavior; incentive salience
Copyright © 2001 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/01/2193236-06$05.00/0
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