These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Sexual behavior reduces hypothalamic androgen receptor immunoreactivity.
    Author: Fernandez-Guasti A, Swaab D, Rodríguez-Manzo G.
    Journal: Psychoneuroendocrinology; 2003 May; 28(4):501-12. PubMed ID: 12689608.
    Abstract:
    Male sexual behavior is regulated by limbic areas like the medial preoptic nucleus (MPN), the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST), the nucleus accumbens (nAcc) and the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMN). Neurons in these brain areas are rich in androgen receptors (AR) and express FOS-immunoreactivity in response to mating. In many species sexual satiation, a state of sexual behavior inhibition, is attained after multiple ejaculations. The mechanisms underlying sexual satiation are largely unknown. In this study we show that sexual activity reduces androgen receptor immunoreactivity (AR-ir) in some of the brain areas associated with the control of male sexual behavior, but not in others. Thus, one ejaculation reduced the AR-ir in the MPN and nAcc, but not in the BST and VMN. Copulation to satiation, on the other hand, reduced AR-ir in the MPN, nAcc and VMN, and not in the BST. The AR-ir reduction observed in the MPN of sexually satiated rats was drastic when compared to that of animals ejaculating once. Serum androgen levels did not vary after one ejaculation or copulation to exhaustion. These data reveal that sexual activity reduces AR in specific brain areas and suggest the possibility that such a reduction underlies the sexual inhibition that characterizes sexual satiety.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]