Components of Mating
Kollack-Walker & Newman (1997):
Experimental Design:
- sexually experienced male hamsters were exposed to female hamster vaginal secretion (FHVS) for 10 minutes, or allowed to mate to different endpoints of copulation: 5 intromissions, 1 ejaculation, 5 ejaculations, long intromissions
- long-intromissions: characterized by a period of extended intravaginal thrusting during which no sperm transfer occurs; the occurrence of long intromissions is believed to reflect a state of sexual satiety (turning off male sex behavior)
- following FHVS exposure or copulation, males were kept in the mating arena (up to one hour) until they were anesthetized, perfused with fixative, their brains removed from the skull and sectioned on a freezing microtome
- a series of sections from each animal were processed for Fos immunocytochemistry
- the number of Fos-immunoreactive neurons were determined for specific brain regions in each animal, averaged per group, and compared statistically