Dopamine: helping males copulate for at least 200 million years (2010)

Behav Neurosci. 2010 Dec;124(6):877-80; discussion 881-3. doi: 10.1037/a0021823.

Pfaus JG.

Source

Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology, Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada. [email protected]

Abstract

Brain dopamine (DA) systems are implicated in a variety of behavioral responses and clinical syndromes, including sex, drug addiction, feeding, satiety, sleep, wakefulness, arousal, attention, reward, decision-making, depression, anxiety, psychosis, and movement disorders. The paper in this issue by Kleitz-Nelson, Dominguez, and Ball (2010) shows how DA release in the medial preoptic area of male quail are activated in an androgen-dependent manner during appetitive and consummatory phases of sexual behavior, similar to that reported previously in male rats. Those data suggest that the steroid-dependent role of hypothalamic DA in male sexual behavior has been conserved through evolutionary time.

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Comment on

Dopamine release in the medial preoptic area is related to hormonal action and sexual motivation. [Behav Neurosci. 2010]