ArticleBehavioural brain research2015
Sexually-motivated song is predicted by androgen-and opioid-related gene expression in the medial preoptic nucleus of male European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).
Article in Behavioural brain research, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sexually-motivated song correlates with opioid- and dopamine-related gene expression in the rostral nucleus accumbens of male European starlings.Behavioural brain research · 2026Article
- Song system neuroanatomy, and immediate early gene expression in a finch species with extensive male and female song.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2024Article
- Distinct patterns of gene expression in the medial preoptic area are related to gregarious singing behavior in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).BMC neuroscience · 2023Article
- The motivation to flock correlates with vocal-social behaviors and dopamine-related gene expression in male European starlings.Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
- Using seasonality and birdsong to understand mechanisms underlying context-appropriate shifts in social motivation and reward.Hormones and behavior · 2022Review
- Flight and Dietary Antioxidants Influence Antioxidant Expression and Activity in a Migratory Bird.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2022Article
- Mu opioid receptors in the medial preoptic area govern social play behavior in adolescent male rats.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2020Article
- Conditioned place preferences induced by hearing song outside the breeding season relate to neural dopamine DBehavioural brain research · 2019Article
- Evaluating testosterone as a phenotypic integrator: From tissues to individuals to species.Molecular and cellular endocrinology · 2019Review
- Co-localization of mu-opioid and dopamine D1 receptors in the medial preoptic area and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis across seasonal states in male European starlings.Hormones and behavior · 2019Article
- The circadian gene Nr1d1 in the mouse nucleus accumbens modulates sociability and anxiety-related behaviour.The European journal of neuroscience · 2018Article
- Androgen and estrogen sensitivity of bird song: a comparative view on gene regulatory levels.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2018Review
- Song-associated reward correlates with endocannabinoid-related gene expression in male European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).Neuroscience · 2017Article
- Prodynorphin and kappa opioid receptor mRNA expression in the brain relates to social status and behavior in male European starlings.Behavioural brain research · 2017Article
- Contributions of testosterone and territory ownership to sexually-motivated behaviors and mRNA expression in the medial preoptic area of male European starlings.Hormones and behavior · 2016Article
- Neural endocannabinoid CB1 receptor expression, social status, and behavior in male European starlings.Brain research · 2016Article
- Song in an Affiliative Context Relates to the Neural Expression of Dopamine- and Neurotensin-Related Genes in Male European Starlings.Brain, behavior and evolution · 2016Article
- Neurotensin neural mRNA expression correlates with vocal communication and other highly-motivated social behaviors in male European starlings.Physiology & behavior · 2015Article
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5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
Across vertebrates, communication conveys information about an individual's motivational state, yet little is known about the neuroendocrine regulation of motivational aspects of communication. For seasonally breeding songbirds, increases in testosterone in spring stimulate high rates of sexually-motivated courtship song, though not all birds sing at high rates. It is generally assumed that testosterone or its metabolites act within the medial preoptic nucleus (POM) to stimulate the motivation to sing. In addition to androgen receptors (ARs) and testosterone, opioid neuropeptides in the POM influence sexually-motivated song production, and it has been proposed that testosterone may in part regulate song by modifying opioid systems. To gain insight into a possible role for androgen-opioid interactions in the regulation of communication we examined associations between sexually-motivated song and relative expression of ARs, mu opioid receptors (muORs), and preproenkephalin (PENK) in the POM (and other regions) of male European starlings using qPCR. Both AR and PENK expression in POM correlated positively with singing behavior, whereas muOR in POM correlated negatively with song. Furthermore, the ratio of PENK/muOR expression correlated negatively with AR expression in POM. Finally, in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), PENK expression correlated negatively with singing behavior. Results support the hypothesis that ARs may alter opioid gene expression in POM to fine-tune singing to reflect a male's motivational state. Data also suggest that bidirectional relationships may exist between opioids and ARs in POM and song, and additionally support a role for opioids in the VTA, independent of AR activity in this region.
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