Oestrogens encode love for female mice

Timing is everything when trying to land a mate. In many species, female receptivity tomale sexual advances is synchronized to fertility and is mediated by steroid hormones produced in the gonads, such as oestrogens. How these hormones tune neural circuits to transition females to mate-seeking mode is unclear. In a series of elegant experiments, neuroscientist Jenna McHenry and colleagues in Garret Stuber’s laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, investigated a hormone-responsive neural circuit important for mate attraction in female mice.