A team of HHMI researchers has prompted female mice to behave like male mice in the lab by depriving them of gene called TRPC2, responsible for functioning of pheromones-sensing organ present in nose called the vomeronasal organ.
After researchers genetically switched off the VNO, the female mouse started engaging in sexually aggressive behavior, such as chasing a male mouse, engaging in foreplay, mounting, pelvic thrust, solicitation and complex ultrasonic vocalization shown by males.
Not only this, they abandoned the newly born babies and came out of the nest unlike female mice, who are good at nursing.
Biologist, have long searched for the root cause of sexually dimorphic behavior. They looked at everything from influence of hormones such as testosterone, positing that there may be a region of brain behind dimorphic behavior.
The finding, published in British Journal Nature, is important as it disapproves the decade old studies relating the difference in male and female sexual behavior to difference in brain structure.
Neuroscientist Marc Breedlove at the Michigan State University said,
Until now it was thought that female brains produce feminine behaviour while male brains can produce masculine behaviours, with little cross or no cross talk between them.
The new research will pave way for further studies into the mechanism that governs sexual behavior in animals and signaling events in the brain to see areas controlling sex-specific behavior.
Image Credit: Sciencedaily
Via: Reuters
