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Behavioural neuroscience

Addicted to love

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 7, page 86 (2006)Cite this article

After 24 h of cohabitation and mating with a female, sexually naive male prairie voles come to prefer the contact of their mating partner to that of a novel female. This partner preference requires signalling through D2-like dopamine receptors in the NAc, and Aragona et al. show that this signalling specifically occurs in the rostral shell of the NAc, a region that is associated with appetitive conditioning in other animals. By contrast, a D1-like receptor agonist infused into the NAc blocked mating-induced partner preference, indicating differential effects of dopaminergic signalling through these two types of receptor.

Partner preference is an initial prerequisite for lasting pair-bond formation, but complete transition to a pair bond also requires that stranger conspecifics, including potential new mates, be actively rejected. Given the opposing actions of D1- and D2-like receptors in partner preference formation, Aragona and co-workers asked whether dopaminergic signalling in the NAc was also important for the development of selective aggression towards novel females. They found that fully pair-bonded male prairie voles had higher levels of D1-like receptors in the rostral core and shell of the NAc compared with naive males. Furthermore, blocking these receptors with a D1-like receptor antagonist blocked aggressive behaviour towards novel females.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Aragona, B. J. et al. Nucleus accumbens dopamine differentially mediates the formation and maintenance of monogamous pair bonds. Nature Neurosci. 9, 133–139 (2006)

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  1. Associate Editor, Nature Neuroscience,

    Cara Allen

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  1. Cara Allen
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Allen, C. Addicted to love. Nat Rev Neurosci 7, 86 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1853

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