Pheromones are those chemicals secreted by living beings that transmit signals in order to cause specific behavior, whether aggressive or sexual, in another individual of the same species. Now, an experiment carried out with rodents shows how the different brain circuits of males and females convert chemical signals into aggressive or sexual behavior, respectively.
We know that pheromones make some people more attractive to us than others , but little else is known about the exact mechanism that makes this possible. In animals, for example, the sense of smell plays a key role in regulating instinctual responses. And in humans?
A team of researchers led by Kazushige Touhara, a professor at the Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Tokyo, Japan, set out to examine how male pheromones enhance sexual behavior in female mice.
“It is known that some chemicals, especially smells, can affect instinctual behaviors in animals, even on first contact. We assume that there is a neural mechanism in the brain that correctly connects important sensory information to the appropriate behavioral centers in the brain “Touhara clarifies.
Therefore, the scientists analyzed a male pheromone, ESP1 ( exocrine glandsecreting peptide 1 ), which has been shown to drive sexual behavior in female mice and aggressive behavior in male mice. These external secretion glands are different from other pheromones, because it is a single chemical that corresponds to a single receptor, which facilitates its monitoring.
By marking neurons with a fluorescent protein, the researchers were able to see how ESP1 signals were transmitted in the brain, discovering that by activating the neurons responsible for responding to the ESP1 pheromone in the hypothalamus, an intensification of sexual behavior occurred in the mice. females, even if the male pheromone was not present.
The authors note that more research is needed to better understand how female sexual behavior works and how to regulate it but they believe they could come up with a strategy to convert male pheromones into female sexual response, which could shed light on how sexual dysfunctions arise. in humans.
Reference: A Labeled-Line Neural Circuit for Pheromone-Mediated Sexual Behaviors in Mice. Neuron. June 2017. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.05.038
