Neuroendocrine mechanism for determination of sexual orientation in the rat

当给予性活跃的雄性和发情的雌性一对气味时，性成熟的雄性大鼠表现出对发情气味的强烈探索，而接受性的雌性大鼠明显喜欢性雄性气味而不是发情气味。这种嗅觉偏好的性别差异可能反映了他们的性取向。本项目的早期研究表明，这些性二态嗅觉偏好是基于嗅觉上皮（OE），而不是犁鼻器（VNO），这被认为是参与信息素感知的感觉信号接收。在大脑中，我们阐明了雄性大鼠的嗅觉偏好在内侧视前区受到严格的调节，该区域通过多种途径接收嗅觉信号，包括杏仁核。

When being given a pair of odors of sexually active males and estrous females, sexually mature male rats show vigorous exploration toward the estrous odors while receptive female rats palpably prefer for sexual male odors to estrous odors. This sex difference in olfactory preference may reflect their sexual orientation. Our earlier studies of this project showed that those sexual dimorphic olfactory preferences are based on sensory signals received by the olfactory epithelium (OE) but not by the vomeronasal organ (VNO) which is believed to be involved in pheromonal perception. In the brain, we elucidated that olfactory preference of male rats is critically regulated in the medial preoptic area that receives olfactory signals through multiple pathways, including the amygdala nuclei.