Dopamine (DA) in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) has been shown to facilitate male rat sexual behavior. However, injections of the catecholamine (CA) neurotoxin 6-OHDA into the MPOA did not impair copulation in tests 3 days after injection. In the present study, three weekly (serial) injections produced no copulatory deficits compared to animals that received a single injection or to preinjecti...

Role of Context, Arousal, and Female Availability, in the Conditioning of Sexual Behavior and Ejaculatory Preference in the male rat Nafissa Ismail, PhD Concordia University, 2008 Although male rats are known to display greater unconditional sexual arousal and mating preference to copulate with a novel female compared to a familiar one, research has shown that males given repeated copulatory tr...

Oxytocin (OT) is a versatile neuropeptide that is involved in a variety of mammalian behaviors, and its role in reproductive function and behavior has been well established. The majority of pharmacological studies of the effects of OT on male sexual behavior have focused on the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), ventral tegmental area (VTA), hippocampus, and amygdala. Less attention has been given ...

Male copulatory patterns, female multiple copulation and male post-copulatory guarding were studied in Eld’s deer Cervus eldi in Datian National Nature Reserve, China. Mating behavior in 18 females and 11 males from a group of 61 semi-captive Eld’s deer were observed. The majority (55.8%) of copulations occurred between 15:00–19:00 h. The ejaculatory mount was preceded by an average of 5.1 prio...

Polyandrous females are expected to discriminate among males through postcopulatory cryptic mate choice. Yet, there is surprisingly little unequivocal evidence for female-mediated cryptic sperm choice. In species in which nuptial gifts facilitate mating, females may gain indirect benefits through preferential storage of sperm from gift-giving males if the gift signals male quality. We tested th...

Steroid hormones regulate sexual behavior primarily by slow, genomically mediated effects. These effects are realized, in part, by enhancing the processing of relevant sensory stimuli, altering the synthesis, release, and/or receptors for neurotransmitters in integrative areas, and increasing the responsiveness of appropriate motor outputs. Dopamine has facilitative effects on sexual motivation...

Dopamine in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) plays a significant role in regulation of male copulation. One mediator of the MPOA dopamine level is nitric oxide. In the current study, we investigated the role of the nitric oxide-guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP) pathway in the regulation of MPOA dopamine and copulation in male rats. The reverse-dialysis of a membrane-permeable analog, 8...

In a wide variety of animal species, females produce vocalizations just before, during or immediately after copulation. These calls are thought to be sexually selected traits that function to incite males to compete for access to the calling females in such a way that, by calling, females maximize the quality and/or the number of their mating partners. The signalling of individual identity with...

The medial preoptic area (MPOA) is a critical regulatory site for the control of male sexual behavior. We first measured glutamate in 2 min microdialysate samples from the MPOA before, during, and after copulation by male rats. There was a slight [approximately 140% of baseline (BL)] rise in extracellular glutamate when the female was presented, a significant increase (approximately 170% of BL)...

The scorpionfly Panorpa cognata has a prolonged premating period. After the male attracts a female, there is usually a long delay, from a few minutes to almost 7 h, before the male initiates copulation by secreting a salivary mass. In our experiments, we manipulated the amount of food, and hence the condition, of males and then measured their premating duration. The premating duration was stron...