Naturally Motivated Behavior and Neuroplasticity: How Sexual Experience Affects Neural Activation During Sexual Behavior in Female Syrian Hamsters

Abstract

Naturally motivated behaviors, like sexual behavior, are subject to behavioral plasticity, which can affect neuronal function. The purpose of this study was to investigate the plasticity of sexual behavior and neural circuits related to sexual behavior in female Syrian hamsters. We hypothesized that lordosis latency would decrease and lordosis duration would increase with sexual experience. We also hypothesized that sex experience would increase the activation of the projections from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) during sexual behavior. We tested our hypothesis by ovariectomizing and hormone priming all subjects and giving half of the subjects six weeks of sex experience while the other half remained sexually naïve. All subjects then received an injection of a retrograde tracer into their NAc and a final sexual experience. All subjects were then sacrificed, and their brain tissue was collected and stained using immunohistochemical techniques. Our data did not support our hypotheses about lordosis latency or duration, and we were unable to test our neuroplasticity hypothesis due to unquantifiable staining. Limitations and possible troubleshooting techniques are discussed in the context of directions for future research.