Cargando…

Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala

Animal–animal recognition within, and across species, is essential for predator avoidance and social interactions. Despite its essential role in orchestrating responses to animal cues, basic principles of information processing by the vomeronasal system are still unknown. The medial amygdala (MeA) o...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bergan, Joseph F, Ben-Shaul, Yoram, Dulac, Catherine
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4038839/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24894465
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02743
_version_ 1782318408927281152
author Bergan, Joseph F
Ben-Shaul, Yoram
Dulac, Catherine
author_facet Bergan, Joseph F
Ben-Shaul, Yoram
Dulac, Catherine
author_sort Bergan, Joseph F
collection PubMed
description Animal–animal recognition within, and across species, is essential for predator avoidance and social interactions. Despite its essential role in orchestrating responses to animal cues, basic principles of information processing by the vomeronasal system are still unknown. The medial amygdala (MeA) occupies a central position in the vomeronasal pathway, upstream of hypothalamic centers dedicated to defensive and social responses. We have characterized sensory responses in the mouse MeA and uncovered emergent properties that shed new light onto the transformation of vomeronasal information into sex- and species-specific responses. In particular, we show that the MeA displays a degree of stimulus selectivity and a striking sexually dimorphic sensory representation that are not observed in the upstream relay of the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB). Furthermore, our results demonstrate that the development of sexually dimorphic circuits in the MeA requires steroid signaling near the time of puberty to organize the functional representation of sensory stimuli. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02743.001
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-4038839
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2014
publisher eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-40388392014-06-04 Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala Bergan, Joseph F Ben-Shaul, Yoram Dulac, Catherine eLife Neuroscience Animal–animal recognition within, and across species, is essential for predator avoidance and social interactions. Despite its essential role in orchestrating responses to animal cues, basic principles of information processing by the vomeronasal system are still unknown. The medial amygdala (MeA) occupies a central position in the vomeronasal pathway, upstream of hypothalamic centers dedicated to defensive and social responses. We have characterized sensory responses in the mouse MeA and uncovered emergent properties that shed new light onto the transformation of vomeronasal information into sex- and species-specific responses. In particular, we show that the MeA displays a degree of stimulus selectivity and a striking sexually dimorphic sensory representation that are not observed in the upstream relay of the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB). Furthermore, our results demonstrate that the development of sexually dimorphic circuits in the MeA requires steroid signaling near the time of puberty to organize the functional representation of sensory stimuli. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02743.001 eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2014-06-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4038839/ /pubmed/24894465 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02743 Text en Copyright © 2014, Bergan et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Bergan, Joseph F
Ben-Shaul, Yoram
Dulac, Catherine
Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala
title Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala
title_full Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala
title_fullStr Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala
title_full_unstemmed Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala
title_short Sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala
title_sort sex-specific processing of social cues in the medial amygdala
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4038839/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24894465
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02743
work_keys_str_mv AT berganjosephf sexspecificprocessingofsocialcuesinthemedialamygdala
AT benshaulyoram sexspecificprocessingofsocialcuesinthemedialamygdala
AT dulaccatherine sexspecificprocessingofsocialcuesinthemedialamygdala