| Title: | Sensory Detection by the Vomeronasal Organ Modulates Experience-Dependent Social Behaviors in Female Mice |
| Author(s): | Trouillet AC; Moussu C; Poissenot K; Keller M; Birnbaumer L; Leinders-Zufall T; Zufall F; Chamero P; |
| Address: | "Laboratoire de Physiologie de la Reproduction et des Comportements, UMR 0085 INRAE-CNRS-IFCE-University of Tours, Nouzilly, France. Neurobiology Laboratory, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Durham, NC, United States. School of Medical Sciences, Institute of Biomedical Research (BIOMED), Catholic University of Argentina, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Center for Integrative Physiology and Molecular Medicine, Saarland University, Homburg, Germany" |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fncel.2021.638800 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1662-5102 (Print) 1662-5102 (Electronic) 1662-5102 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "In mice, social behaviors are largely controlled by the olfactory system. Pheromone detection induces naive virgin females to retrieve isolated pups to the nest and to be sexually receptive to males, but social experience increases the performance of both types of innate behaviors. Whether animals are intrinsically sensitive to the smell of conspecifics, or the detection of olfactory cues modulates experience for the display of social responses is currently unclear. Here, we employed mice with an olfactory-specific deletion of the G protein Galphai2, which partially eliminates sensory function in the vomeronasal organ (VNO), to show that social behavior in female mice results from interactions between intrinsic mechanisms in the vomeronasal system and experience-dependent plasticity. In pup- and sexually-naive females, Galphai2 deletion elicited a reduction in pup retrieval behavior, but not in sexual receptivity. By contrast, experienced animals showed normal maternal behavior, but the experience-dependent increase in sexual receptivity was incomplete. Further, lower receptivity was accompanied by reduced neuronal activity in the anterior accessory olfactory bulb and the rostral periventricular area of the third ventricle. Therefore, neural mechanisms utilize intrinsic sensitivity in the mouse vomeronasal system and enable plasticity to display consistent social behavior" |
| Keywords: | Galphai2 kisspeptin lordosis maternal olfactory sex preference; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINETrouillet, Anne-Charlotte Moussu, Chantal Poissenot, Kevin Keller, Matthieu Birnbaumer, Lutz Leinders-Zufall, Trese Zufall, Frank Chamero, Pablo eng Z01 ES101643/Intramural NIH HHS/ Switzerland 2021/03/09 Front Cell Neurosci. 2021 Feb 17; 15:638800. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2021.638800. eCollection 2021" |
