Fig. 1.

The effect of CNO-induced medial amygdala silencing on the preference of ovariectomized, estradiol and progesterone primed female mice to investigate urinary cues from testes-intact male versus estrous female mice. Data are shown for estrous females with bilateral DREADD infections of the medial amygdala (A and B) and for non-infected subjects (C and D). Females’ preference to investigate urinary chemosignals is represented as difference scores (male – female urine investigation time in seconds) in test sessions conducted on 4 separate days. On each test day female subjects received two 5-min sessions: one in which they were allowed to make nasal contact with the urinary stimuli (top panels), and another in which nasal contact was prevented (non-contact, volatiles only; bottom panels). Either the DREADD activating drug, CNO, or saline was administered intraperitoneally 30 min prior to each behavioral test. The average difference score data are expressed as the mean ± SEM, while the circles represent the individual difference scores for each mouse. * p < 0.05 for treatment comparisons between sessions on test days 1 and 2 and between sessions on test days 3 and 4. The number of subjects in each group is shown in parentheses.