RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sexual behavior and aggression in male mice: involvement of the vomeronasal system
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 2222
OP 2229
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.04-09-02222.1984
VO 4
IS 9
A1 AN Clancy
A1 A Coquelin
A1 F Macrides
A1 RA Gorski
A1 EP Noble
YR 1984
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/4/9/2222.abstract
AB Recent observations have implicated the vomeronasal (accessory olfactory) system in the chemosensory control of rodent social behaviors. The purpose of this study was to observe the effects of peripheral vomeronasal organ extirpation on sexual behavior, aggression, and urine marking in male mice. Relative to sham-operated control animals, mice lacking vomeronasal organs displayed significantly reduced levels of copulatory behavior and intermale aggression. Urine marking rates were not reduced. The peripheral removal of the vomeronasal organ resulted in complete bilateral deafferentation of the accessory olfactory bulbs but spared the peripheral input to the main olfactory bulbs as evidenced by the lack of anterograde vomeronasal nerve transport but normal anterograde olfactory nerve transport of intranasally applied horseradish peroxidase. Neither body weights, paired testes weights, nor seminal vesicle weights of mice with vomeronasal system lesions differed significantly from those of control animals. Thus, an intact vomeronasal organ is important for the normal display of sexual behavior and aggression in male mice, and the reductions in these androgen-dependent behaviors following peripheral deafferentation of the vomeronasal system cannot be attributed to a chronic reduction of gonadal hormone secretion.