Sex hormonal control of the rat somatosensory cortex
Molecular Biology and Physiology of Neurons and Glial Cells
Final Report Abstract
Our grant ‘Sex hormonal control of the rat somatosensory cortex’ showed by chronic imaging that the somatosensory genital map in mice changes during puberty. Such chronic imaging allowed us to show that the first sexual encounter in mice can drastically advance the maturation of mouse genital cortex. Specifically, the first sexual contacts remap the cortical ‘body image’ in layer 4 of somatosensory cortex, a layer that is largely immutable by all other changes after the first week of life. The findings give a sense of the huge sway of sexual touch exerts on the brain. The changes in the mouse somatosensory genital map during puberty do not simply reflect an altered peripheral innervation, however. The innervation pattern of the mouse penis is unaltered during puberty, despite the size increase of the penis. Another key finding concerns the effects of estrogens and the estrus cycle on fast-spiking cortical interneurons. As the firing rate of fast-spiking cortical interneurons changes much more than that of pyramidal cells during estrus, we have doubts that there can be an exact excitation-inhibition balance (as many authors claim) through the female estrus cycle.
Publications
- (2019) Effects of sexual experience and puberty on mouse genital cortex revealed by chronic imaging. Current Biology, 29(21), 3588-3599
Sigl-Glöckner J, Maier E, Takahashi N, Sachdev R, Larkum M, & Brecht M
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.08.062) - (2019) Estrus-cycle regulation of cortical inhibition. Current Biology
Clemens AM, Lenschow C, Beed P, Li L, Sammons R, Naumann RK, Wang H, Schmitz D, Brecht M
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.01.045) - (2020) Constant innervation despite pubertal growth of the mouse penis. Journal of Comparative Neurology
Purkart L, Sigl‐Glöckner J, & Brecht M
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.24892)
