Physiological and Anatomical Outputs of Rat Genital Cortex

Constanze Lenschow, Michael Brecht
Cerebral Cortex. 2018-01-24; 28(4): 1472-1486
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhx359

PubMed

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https://www.bordeaux-neurocampus.fr/12168

Lenschow C(1)(2), Brecht M(1)(3).

Author information:
(1)Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Humboldt-Universität
zu Berlin, 10115 Berlin, Germany.
(2)Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Avenida Brasília, 1400-038 Lisbon,
Portugal.
(3)NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10117
Berlin, Germany.

Rat somatosensory genital cortex contains a large sexually monomorphic
representation of the penis in males and the clitoris in females. Genital cortex
microstimulation-evoked movements of legs, trunk and genitals, which showed
sex-specific differences related to mating behaviors and included thrusting in
males and lordosis-like movements in females. Erections/tumescence of penis or
clitoris could not be evoked, however. Anterograde tracer injections into
penis/clitoris cortex revealed eleven corticocortical and 10 subcortical
projection targets, which were qualitatively similar in both sexes.
Corticocortical genital-cortex-projections innervated about 3% of the cortical
surface and most were analog to other somatosensory projections targeting motor
cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, parietal cortex and perirhinal cortex.
Corticocortical projections that differed from other parts of somatosensory
cortex targeted male scrotum cortex, female vulva cortex, the
somatosensory-ear-auditory-cortex-region and the caudal parietal area. Aligning
cytoarchitectonic borders with motor topography, sensory genital responses and
corticocortical projections identified a candidate region for genital motor
cortex. Most subcortical genital-cortex-projections were analog to other
thalamic, tectal or pontine projections of somatosensory cortex.
Genital-cortex-specific subcortical projections targeted amygdala and nucleus
submedius and accumbens. Microstimulation-effects and projections support a
sexual function of genital cortex and suggest that genital cortex is a major hub
of sexual sensorimotor processing in rodents.