Abstract
In this chapter, we review recent data about the involvement of both the main and the accessory olfactory system in mate recognition and the control of sexual behavior in mice. Whereas the main olfactory system seems to play a central role in mate recognition in both male and female mice, clear sex differences emerge with regard to which olfactory system plays a more important role in the control of sexual behavior. Indeed, the main but not the accessory olfactory system seems to be more important in regulating sexual behavior in male mice, whereas in female mice, the accessory olfactory system seems to play a critical role in the control of mating.
Olfaction is of primary importance for social recognition in mammals, including mice. Thus mice use odors to distinguish sex, social or reproductive status of conspecifics (Brennan and Zufall 2006; Brown 1979). In addition, odors have been shown to facilitate the display of sexual behavior (e.g. Thompson and Edwards 1972) and to induce neuroendocrine responses (e.g. pregnancy block in female mice; Brennan and Keverne 1997).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Reference
Bakker, J., Honda, S., Harada, N. and Balthazart, J. (2002) The aromatase knock-out mouse provides new evidence that estradiol is required during development in the female for the expression of sociosexual behaviors in adulthood. J. Neurosci. 22, 9104–9112.
Brennan, P.A. and Keverne, E.B. (1997) Neural mechanisms of mammalian olfactory learning. Prog. Neurobiol. 51, 457–481.
Brennan, P.A. and Zufall, F. (2006) Pheromonal communication in vertebrates. Nature 444, 308–315.
Brown, R.E. (1979) Mammalian social odors. Adv. Stud. Behav. 10, 107–161.
Curtis, J. T., Liu, Y. and Wang, Z. (2001) Lesions of the vomeronasal organ disrupt mating-induced pair bonding in female prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster). Brain Res. 18, 167–174.
Del Punta, K., Leinders-Zufall, T., Rodriguez, I., Jukam, D., Wysocki, C. J., Ogawa, S., Zufall, F. and Mombaerts, P. (2002) Deficient pheromone responses in mice lacking a cluster of vomeronasal receptor genes. Nature 419, 70–74.
Edwards, D.A. and Burge, K.G. (1973) Olfactory control of sexual behavior of female and male mice. Physiol. Behav. 11, 867–872.
Firestein, S. (2001) How the olfactory system makes sense of scents. Nature 413, 211–218.
Hurst, J.L. and Beynon, R. (2004) Scent wars: the chemobiology of competitive signalling in mice. Bioessays 26, 1288–1298.
Keller, M., Douhard, Q., Baum, M.J. and Bakker, J. (2006a) Destruction of the main olfactory epithelium reduces female sexual behavior and olfactory investigation in female mice. Chem. Senses 31, 4, 315–323.
Keller, M., Douhard, Q., Baum, M.J. and Bakker, J. (2006b) Sexual experience does not modulate the detrimental effects of zinc sulfate–lesioning of the main olfactory epithelium on sexual behavior in male mice. Chem. Senses 31, 8, 753–762.
Keller, M., Pierman, S., Douhard, Q., Baum, M.J. and Bakker, J. (2006c) The vomeronasal organ is required for the expression of lordosis behahavior, but not sex discrimination in female mice. Eur. J. Neurosci. 23, 521–530.
Kelliher, K.R., Spehr, M., Li, X.H., Zufall, F. and Leinders-Zufall, T. (2006) Pheromonal recognition memory induced by TRPC2-independent vomeronasal sensing. Eur. J. Neurosci. 23, 3385–3390.
Keverne, E.B. (1999) The vomeronasal organ. Science 286, 716–720.
Leinders-Zufall, T., Brennan, P.A., Widmayer, Prasanth Chandramani, C., Maul-Pavicic, A., Jager, M., Li, X.H., Breer, H., Zufall, F. and Boehm, T. (2004) MHC class I peptides as chemosignals in the vomeronasal organ. Science 306, 1033–1037.
Leinders-Zufall, T., Lane, A.P., Puche, A.C., Ma, W., Novotny, M.V., Shipley, M.T. and Zufall, F. (2000) Ultrasensitive pheromone detection by mammalian vomeronasal neurons. Nature 405, 470–477.
Leypold, B.G., Yu, C.R., Leinders-Zufall, T., Kim, M.M., Zufall, F. and Axel, R. (2002) Altered sexual and social behaviors in trp2 mutant mice. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 6376–6381.
Lin, D.Y., Zhang, S.Z., Block, E. and Katz, L.C. (2005) Encoding social signals in the mouse main olfactory bulb. Nature 434, 470–477.
Lloyd-Thomas, A. and Keverne, E.B. (1982) Role of the brain and accessory olfactory system in the block of pregnancy in mice. Neuroscience 7, 907–913.
Luo, M., Fee, M.S. and Katz, L.C. (2003) Encoding pheromonal signal in the accessory olfactory bulb of behaving mice. Science 299, 1196–1201.
Ma, D., Allen, N.D., Van Bergen, Y.C., Jones, C.M., Baum, M.J., Keverne, E.B. and Brennan, P.A. (2002) Selective ablation of olfactory receptor neurons without functional impairement of vomeronasal receptor neurons in OMP-ntr transgenic mice. Eur. J. Neurosci. 16, 2317–2323.
Mackay-Sim, A. and Rose, J.D. (1986) Removal of vomeronasal organ impairs lordosis in female hamsters: effect is reversed by luteinising hormone-releasing hormone. Neuroendocrinology 42, 489–493.
Mandiyan, V.S., Coats, J.K. and Shah, N.M. (2005) Deficits in sexual and aggressive behaviors in Cnga2 mutant mice. Nat. Neurosci. 8, 1660–1662.
Meredith, M. (1986) Vomeronasal organ removal before sexual experience impairs male hamster mating behavior. Physiol. Behav. 36, 737–743.
Meredith, M. and O’Connell (1979) Efferents control of stimulus access to the hamster vomeronasal organ. J. Physiol. 286, 301–316.
Moncho-Bogani, J., Lanuza, E., Hernandez, A., Novejarque, A. and Martinez-Garcia, F. (2002) Attractive properties of sexual pheromones in mice: innate or learned? Physiol. Behav. 77, 167–176.
Moncho-Bogani, J., Lanuza, E., Lorente, M.J. and Martinez-Garcia F. (2004) Attraction to male pheromones and sexual behavior show different regulatory mechanisms in female mice. Physiol. Behav. 81, 427–434.
O’Connell, R.J. and Meredith, M. (1984) Effects of volatile and nonvolatile chemical signals on male sexual behaviors mediated by the main and accessory olfactory systems. Behav. Neurosci. 98, 1083–1093.
Pankevich, D.E., Baum, M.J. and Cherry, J.A. (2004) Olfactory sex-discrimination persists, whereas the preference for urinary odorants from estrous females disappears in male mice after vomeronasal organ removal. J. Neurosci. 24, 9451–9457.
Petrulis, A., Peng, M. and Johnston, R.E. (1999) Effects of vomeronasal organ removal on individual odor discrimination, sex-odor preference, and scent marking by female hamsters. Physiol. Behav. 66, 73–83.
Powers, J.B. and Winans, S.S. (1975) Vomeronasal organ: critical role in mediating sexual behavior of the male hamster. Science 187, 961–963.
Powers, J. B., Fields, R. B. and Winans, S. S. (1979) Olfactory and vomeronasal system articipation in male hamsters’ attraction to female vaginal secretions. Physiol. Behav. 22, 77–84.
Rajendren, J.B., Dudley, C.A., and Moss, R.L. (1990) Role of the vomeronasal organ in the male-induced enhancement of sexual receptivity in female rats. Neuroendocrinology 52, 368–372.
Restrepo, D., Lin, W., Salcedo, E., Yamazaki, K. and Beauchamp, G. (2006) Odortypes and MHC peptides: complementary chemosignals of MHC haplotype? Trends Neurosci. 29, 604–609.
Scalia, F. and Winans, S.S. (1975) The differential projections of the olfactory bulb and accessory olfactory bulb in mammals. J. Comp. Neurol. 161, 31–35.
Spehr, M., Kelliher, K.R., Li, X.H., Boehm, T., Leinders-Zufall, T. and Zufall, F. (2006) Essential role of the main olfactory system in social recognition of major histocompatibility complex peptide ligands. J. Neurosci. 26, 1961–1970.
Stowers, L., Holy, T. E., Meister, M., Dulac, C. and Koentges, G. (2002). Loss of sex-discrimination and male-male aggression in mice deficient for TRP2. Science 295, 1493–1500.
Thompson, M.L. and Edwards, D.A. (1972) Olfactory bulb removal impairs the hormonal induction of sexual receptivity in spayed female mice. Physiol. Behav. 8, 1141–1146.
Winans, S. S. and Powers, J. B. (1977) Olfactory and vomeronasal deafferantation of male hamsters: Histological and behavioral analyses. Brain Res. 126, 325–344.
Woodley, S.K., Cloe, A.L., Waters, P. and Baum, M.J. (2004) Effects of vomeronasal organ removal on olfactory sex discrimination and odor preferences of female ferrets. Chem. Senses 29, 659–669.
Wysocki, C.J. and Wysocki, L.M. (1995) Surgical removal of the vomeronasal organ and its verification. In: Speilman, A.I. and Brands, J.G. (Eds.), Experimental Cell Biology of Taste and Olfaction. CRC Press, New York, pp. 49–57.
Yoon, H., Enquist, L.W. and Dulac, C. (2005) Olfactory inputs to hypothalamic neurons controlling reproduction and fertility. Cell 123, 669–682.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media,LLC
About this paper
Cite this paper
Keller, M., Baum, M.J., Bakker, J. (2008). Olfactory Control of Sex-Recognition and Sexual Behavior in Mice. In: Hurst, J.L., Beynon, R.J., Roberts, S.C., Wyatt, T.D. (eds) Chemical Signals in Vertebrates 11. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73945-8_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73945-8_23
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-73944-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-73945-8
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)