Changes in Hypothalamic Responsiveness to Testosterone in Male Barbary Doves (Streptopelia risoria)

Abstract

EVIDENCE derived chiefly from work on rodents suggests that androgens influence central nervous mechanisms underlying behaviour in two ways: first, during pre and neonatal development androgens differentiate mechanisms underlying male sexual behaviour^1–3; second, in adulthood androgens activate mechanisms organized during development to induce the expression of male sexual behaviour⁴. Because male copulatory behaviour in rats is induced by the direct application of testosterone to hormone sensitive areas of the hypothalamus^5,6 the process whereby androgens activate male sexual behaviour seems to have its focus in the hypothalamic areas of the brain. It is not known whether the hormone-sensitivity of hypothalamic mechanisms involved in the activation of male sexual behaviour is actively maintained by androgens or by other factors.