Revealing a Sexually Differentiated Neural Circuit for Sensing Social Stimuli
Sep 17, 2020
Material below summarizes the article Synaptic Connections of Aromatase Circuits in the Medial Amygdala are Sex Specific, published on May 29, 2020, in eNeuro and authored by Addison Billing, Marcelo Henrique Correia, Diane A. Kelly, Geng-Lin Li, and Joseph Bergan.
Highlights
- Aromatase-producing cells in the mouse medial amygdala receive input originating from sensory cells in the vomeronasal organ that express a single class of receptors known to detect chemicals that convey information about the age, sex, and breeding condition of other mice.
- We did not observe sex differences in the intrinsic electrophysiological properties of aromatase-producing cells in the medial amygdala; however, we found a robust anatomical sex difference in the number of synapses that connect the accessory olfactory bulb – and thus the vomeronasal organ - to these cells.
- Males have nearly an order of magnitude more of these synaptic connections than do females, an anatomical difference that could play a role in shaping sex differences in social behaviors mediated by the medial amygdala.
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