Research Highlights

• Subject Category:
  • Neuroscience

Published online: 2 July 2008 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2008.151

Animal behaviour: Chemical attraction

Jane Qiu

Introduction

© (2008) istockphoto.com/ Paulo Ferreira

Male sexual behaviours are controlled by chemicals — such as dopamine and serotonin — that are known to regulate activities in the nervous system. A study led by Aike Guo at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, China, and Jean-François Ferveur at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France¹, have shown that an increased dopamine level in the brain enhances the frequency of male–male courtship in the fruit fly Drosophila.

Using genetic approaches, the researchers generated flies that expressed high levels of tyrosine hydroxylase — the enzyme involved in dopamine synthesis — in the brain. As expected, those flies also had increased levels of dopamine expression. The researchers found that the higher their dopamine levels, the greater their tendency to court with other males.

Compared with controls, male flies with a dopamine overload in their brains were equally keen to court females. Guo, Ferveur and co-workers then tested the role of sensory perception in mate discrimination, and found that these male flies were unable to perceive visual, olfactory and acoustic signals that normally tend to reduce male–male courtship behaviour in wild-type animals.

The researchers hold the opinion that neuromodulators might be important for sexual inclination and behaviour by regulating sensory communication between individuals of the same or different sexes. However, further studies are necessary to confirm if the findings can be extrapolated to other species.

The authors of this work are from:
Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Shanghai, China; Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China; Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche, University de Bourgogne, Dijon, France.

Reference

1. Liu, T. et al. Increased dopamine level enhances male–male courtship in Drosophila. J. Neurosci. 28, 5539–5546 (2008). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |