Mating motivation likely plays a role in bias to attractive individuals, but there are other complementary theories drawn from the evolutionary literature related to competition, friendship, and leadership selection that also make relevant predictions concerning biases towards attractive individuals. The relative balance of these factors will be context dependent and so help explain why the pattern of bias is sometimes variable.
Socioeconomic status (SES) impacts health and life-course outcomes. This genome-wide association study (GWAS) of sociologically informed occupational status measures (ISEI, SIOPS, CAMSIS) using the UK Biobank (N = 273,157) identified 106 independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms of which 8 are novel to the study of SES. Genetic correlations with educational attainment (r = 0.
Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Juriquilla, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, Campus UNAM-Juriquilla, 76230 Querétaro, Mexico; Instituto de Neurobiología, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, Campus UNAM-Juriquilla, 76230 Querétaro, Mexico.
Kisspeptin (Kp), a potent regulator of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonad axis, was recently shown to be involved in partner preference and sexual receptivity in females. Interestingly, Kp and its receptor (Kiss1r) are expressed in brain regions involved in the reward and motivation of reinforcing behaviors. Therefore, in the present study, we designed 3 experiments to determine the participation of Kp in female sexual behavior and the positive affective (PA) reward state induced by paced mating (PM).
Sexual behavior in female rats varies depending on sexual history and the combination of ovarian hormones administered to induce receptivity. Experiment 1 tested whether paced mating behavior differed in sexually experienced rats when receptivity was induced with sequential estradiol benzoate (EB) and progesterone (P) or EB-Alone. Rats gained paced mating experience under EB/P (10 μg EB 48 hr + 1 mg P 4-6 hr before mating) and then were primed with EB-Alone (2 μg EB for 6 days).
Punishing and rewarding experiences can change the valence of sensory stimuli and guide animal behavior in opposite directions, resulting in avoidance or approach. Often, however, a stimulus is encountered with both positive and negative experiences. How is such conflicting information represented in the brain and resolved into a behavioral decision? We address this question by dissecting a circuit for sexual conditioning in C.
In group-living primates, male investment in infants is highly variable. Previous research on polygynandrous primates found that male care of infants, whether direct or indirect, may be a means to increase offspring survival, increase social status, invest in future mating opportunities, and/or invest in future social or coalition partners, any of which may increase fitness outcomes. Relationships between male white-faced capuchins (Cebus imitator) and infants are highly variable, ranging from neutral to highly affiliative during periods of group stability to lethal during times of instability.
