Pheromones are chemical messengers that trigger neuroendocrine responses and reproductive behaviors — in humans they have been implicated in increasing sexual attractiveness. In mice, pheromones are detected by the vomeronsal organ which sends the information to the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB), but the precise mechanisms that integrate these signals have been unclear. In the February 21
Luo et al. recorded neuronal firing rates from single neurons in the AOB of male mice engaged in natural behaviors. They observed that neuronal firing was modulated by physical contact with male and female conspecifics, with individual neurons activated selectively by specific combinations of the sex and strain of ...
