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Author Notes:

E-mail Address : dmaney@emory.edu.

We thank Demesew Abebe, Ganapathy Bhat, Sarah Earp, Shuai Hao, Cary Leung, Jory Liang, Lisa Matragrano, Justin Michaud, David Nicholson, Sandra Shirk, and Emily Young for technical assistance, and the Emory University Department of Biology for the use of resources.

We are grateful to Ignacio Moore for access to his RIA facility at Virginia Tech and for advice about the assays, and to David Gutman for access to the Nanozoomer scanner.

Subjects:

Research Funding:

This work was supported by IOS-0723805 and NIMH-R01MH082833 to DLM. Undergraduate research support was provided by the Behavioral Research Advancements in Neuroscience program (Center for Behavioral Neuroscience) and by the Summer Undergraduate Research at Emory and Scholarly Inquiry and Research at Emory programs.

Keywords:

  • Science & Technology
  • Life Sciences & Biomedicine
  • Behavioral Sciences
  • Endocrinology & Metabolism
  • Androgen
  • Mesotocin
  • Nonapeptide
  • Oxytocin
  • Song
  • Testosterone
  • Vasopressin
  • V1a
  • White-throated sparrow
  • WHITE-THROATED SPARROW
  • VASOPRESSIN OXYTOCIN SUPERFAMILY
  • SOCIAL-BEHAVIOR NETWORK
  • INDUCED FLANK MARKING
  • CANARY BRAIN
  • ZONOTRICHIA-ALBICOLLIS
  • IMMUNOREACTIVE CELLS
  • ANDROGEN RECEPTOR
  • ESTROGEN-RECEPTOR
  • RAT-BRAIN

Hormonal regulation of vasotocin receptor mRNA in a seasonally breeding songbird

Tools:

Journal Title:

Hormones and Behavior

Volume:

Volume 65, Number 3

Publisher:

, Pages 254-263

Type of Work:

Article | Post-print: After Peer Review

Abstract:

Behaviors associated with breeding are seasonally modulated in a variety of species. These changes in behavior are mediated by sex steroids, levels of which likewise vary with season. The effects of androgens on behaviors associated with breeding may in turn be partly mediated by the nonapeptides vasopressin (VP) and oxytocin (OT) in mammals, and vasotocin (VT) in birds. The effects of testosterone (T) on production of these neuropeptides have been well-studied; however, the regulation of VT receptors by T is not well understood. In this study, we investigated steroid-dependent regulation of VT receptor (VTR) mRNA in a seasonally breeding songbird, the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis). We focused on VTR subtypes that have been most strongly implicated in social behavior: V1a and oxytocin-like receptor (OTR). Using in situ hybridization, we show that T-treatment of non-breeding males altered V1a and OTR mRNA expression in several regions associated with seasonal reproductive behaviors. For example, T-treatment increased V1a mRNA expression in the medial preoptic area, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and ventromedial hypothalamus. T-treatment also affected both V1a and OTR mRNA expression in nuclei of the song system; some of these effects depended on the presence or absence of a chromosomal rearrangement that affects singing behavior, plasma T, and VT immunolabeling in this species. Overall, our results strengthen evidence that VT helps mediate the behavioral effects of T in songbirds, and suggest that the chromosomal rearrangement in this species may affect the sensitivity of the VT system to seasonal changes in T.

Copyright information:

© 2013 Elsevier Inc.

This is an Open Access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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