Conditioned place preferences induced by hearing song outside the breeding season relate to neural dopamine D1 and cannabinoid CB1 gene expression in female European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).

Conditioned place preferences induced by hearing song outside the breeding season relate to neural dopamine D1 and cannabinoid CB1 gene expression in female European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). Behav Brain Res. 2019 May 22;:111970 Authors: Hahn AH, Spool JA, Angyal CS, Stevenson SA, Riters LV Abstract The affective state induced by sensory stimuli changes to adaptively modify behaviors that are critical for survival and reproduction. In European starlings, during the spring breeding season, male courtship song is rewarding to females, but only to those that possess resources that are necessary for reproduction (i.e., nesting sites). In fall, starling song is non-sexual and proposed to maintain flocks. This suggests that in fall it may be adaptive for females to be rewarded by fall rather than spring, courtship song. We used a conditioned place preference (CPP) test to evaluate song-induced affective state in fall condition females and quantitative real-time PCR to measure expression of genes that modulate affective state (CB1 endocannabinoid and D1 dopamine receptors) in brain regions that were previously implicated in song-induced reward (i.e., the medial preoptic nucleus (mPOA) and ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH)). Fall-condition females developed an aversion to a place that had been paired with playback of both male fall and courtship song, indicating that in general male song induces a negative affective state outside the breed...
Source: Behavioural Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research