Meredith Michael, Westberry Jenne M
Program in Neuroscience and Department Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4340, USA.
J Neurosci. 2004 Jun 23;24(25):5719-25. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1139-04.2004.
Chemosignals related to reproductive and social status (pheromones) carry messages between opposite-sex and same-sex individuals in many species. Each individual must distinguish signals relevant to its own social behavior with conspecifics from signals used by other (heterospecific) species relevant to their social behavior. In male hamsters, the medial amygdala responded in a categorically different way to conspecific stimuli (socially relevant) and heterospecific stimuli (not socially relevant but serving similar purposes for other species), and may play an important role in this decision. Immediate-early gene responses to conspecific chemosignals and heterospecific chemosignals were characteristically different. The categorical responses, generated by chemosensory input from the vomeronasal organ and (probably) GABA inhibition within the amygdala, were not apparent at more peripheral sensory levels. This is the first evidence for an important role of the amygdala, a limbic structure known to be involved in social and emotional behavior, in discrimination of species specificity in chemosignals.
与生殖和社会地位相关的化学信号（信息素）在许多物种的异性和同性个体之间传递信息。每个个体必须将与自身同种个体社会行为相关的信号与其他（异种）物种用于其社会行为的信号区分开来。在雄性仓鼠中，内侧杏仁核对同种刺激（与社会相关）和异种刺激（与社会无关但对其他物种有类似作用）的反应截然不同，并且可能在这种区分中起重要作用。即刻早期基因对同种化学信号和异种化学信号的反应具有显著差异。由犁鼻器的化学感觉输入以及杏仁核内（可能）的γ-氨基丁酸抑制产生的分类反应，在更外周的感觉水平上并不明显。这是杏仁核（一种已知参与社会和情感行为的边缘结构）在化学信号物种特异性辨别中起重要作用的首个证据。
