Sexually dimorphic neurons in the ventromedial hypothalamus govern mating in both sexes and aggression in males
By Cindy F. Yang, Michael C. Chiang, Daniel C Gray, M. Prabhakaran, Maricruz Alvarado, Scott A. Juntti, Elizabeth K. Unger, J. Wells, N. Shah. Cell, 2013
640 citations recorded by the source corpus.
SUMMARY Sexual dimorphisms in the brain underlie behavioral sex differences, but the function of individual sexually dimorphic neuronal populations is poorly understood. Neuronal sexual dimorphisms typically represent quantitative differences in cell number, gene expression, or other features, and it is unknown if these dimorphisms control sex-typical behavior in one sex exclusively or in both sexes. The progesterone receptor (PR) controls female sexual behavior, and we find many sex differences in number, distribution, or projections of PR-expressing neurons in the adult mouse brain. We have ablated one such PR-expressing neuronal population located in the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) using a novel genetic strategy. Ablation of these neurons in females greatly diminishes sexual receptivity. Strikingly, the corresponding ablation in males reduces mating and aggression. Our findings reveal the functions of a molecularly-defined, sexually dimorphic neuronal population in the brain. Moreover we show that sexually dimorphic neurons can control distinct sex-typical behaviors in both sexes.
Subfields: Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, Reproductive Medicine, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7660591a3a60bf9034080033d38e4c70694f465c
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Citations in the corpus
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