Facilitation of male-like coital behavior in female rats by kindling

Kindling is a model of epilepsy and brain plasticity. When applied to the medial preoptic area (MPOA) of non-copulating male rats kindling induces masculine sexual behavior. In order to test if kindling could facilitate male-like coital behavior in female rats, sexually naive females were ovariectomized and kindled in the amygdala (AMG) or the MPOA until an intermediate stage (between 1 and 3, MPOA1-3) or until stage 5 (MPOA5 group). Once kindling was established, females were treated with 2.5 mg/Kg of testosterone propionate (TP) for 15 days. Male-like coital behavior was evaluated on days 5, 10 and 15 of treatment. Subjects were then injected with a TP dose of 5 mg/kg for 15 days and tested in the same way as with the lower dose. The number of mounts was significantly increased and the mount latency was significantly reduced in the MPOA1-3 group when tested 5 days after treatment with the low dose of TP. The same facilitation was observed in MPOA1-3 and MPOA5 groups on day 10 of treatment with the low dose of TP. When the animals were under the high dose of TP treatment, the number of intromissions was increased in all experimental groups (including the AMG kindled group) in comparison to sham animals. In a second experiment we evaluated if the facilitation of male-like coital behavior induced by kindling was produced by a modification of the response of the vomeronasal system to sexually relevant cues. Ovariectomized females were stimulated until they reached kindling stage 2 then they were treated with 2.5 mg/kg of TP for 5 days. After animals were exposed for 90 min to clean sawdust or sawdust soiled by estrous females they were perfused. Fos was detected by immunocytochemistry along the vomeronasal pathway. No differences were found in Fos responses between sham and MPOA kindled females. The facilitation of masculine sexual behavior observed in AMG kindled females may be a consequence of the propagation of the AD to other brain regions involved in the expression of masculine sexual behavior. We propose that masculine sexual behavior is facilitated in MPOA kindled female rats by local neural changes produced by this kind of stimulation without modifying the response of the vomeronasal system to sexually relevant cues. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.