Abstracts - Association for Chemoreception Sciences

decreasing of endogenous volatiles which increase with age. To
investigate whether the ingestion of citronellal which is known as
an monoterpene aldehyde that produce some of the most intense
aroma for both of human and mice can alter the mouse urinary
odor, mice (C57BL6J) were trained in a Y-maze to discriminate
urine odors of donor mice which ingested citronellal aqueous
solution or control solution. Trained mice could discriminate of
male urine odors between citronellal ingestion group and control
group. A series of generalization tests revealed that the citronellal
ingestion altered mouse urinary odor directly due to citronellal
odor, neither the effect of the metabolite of citronellal, nor the
alteration of the proportion in the endogenic urinary volatiles
evoked by citronellal ingestion. Moreover, the trained mice which
had successfully discriminated urine odors of donor mice of
different age failed to distinguish the age related change in the
male mouse urinary odor by 50 ppm of citronellal ingestion.
Thus, this study is the first investigation to show that xenobiotic
per os can alter the mouse urine odor by its own odor and
confound the behavioral response of trained mice to the scent
of age.
#P131 POSTER SESSION III: OLFACTORY
PERCEPTION, HUMAN PSYCHOPHYSICS &
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR; PERIPHERAL TASTE
DEVELOPMENT & SIGNALING
Lesions of the Medial Amygdala Impair Lordosis And
Olfactory Responses to Urinary Volatiles in Female Mice
Brett DiBenedictis 1 , Katie Ingraham 1 , Michael J Baum 1 ,
James A Cherry 2
1
Dept Biology, Boston University Boston, MA, USA,
2
Dept Psychology, Boston University Boston, MA, USA
Increasing evidence suggests that the main and accessory olfactory
systems in rodents, which detect primarily volatile and nonvolatile
cues, respectively, both may play roles in mate recognition
and mating behavior. Recently, we have shown in the mouse that
the medial amygdala (Me) receives direct inputs from both
systems, and we have begun to examine the role of the Me in
mediating behavioral and physiological responses to biologically
relevant olfactory stimuli, such as conspecific urine. In this study,
we used female mice to examine whether either lordosis or typical
preferences of females for urine from gonadally intact vs castrated
male mice depends on the posterior Me. Adult females were
gonadectomized and given bilateral sham surgeries or electrolytic
lesions aimed at the posterior Me. After recovery mice were
treated with estradiol benzoate and progesterone and given a
series of tests to examine interest in urine derived from castrated
or intact males. Lordosis quotients in response to mounts from
stud males were also determined in 4 separate tests. Mice with
posterior Me lesions showed significantly reduced lordosis
quotients in comparison to shams (p