Reproductive behaviors: new developments in concepts and in molecular mechanisms progress in brain research, Luciano Martini, editor, January 19, 2010.

New developments in the analysis of mechanisms for reproductive behaviors are reviewed. Conceptually, the concept of generalized arousal (GA) of the central nervous system (CNS) is considered. Breeding for high and low GA, we show an impact of GA on sexual arousal of male mice, and also find that the structure of GA in the CNS of males and females is not the same. Further, we propose, theoretically, that among epithelial tissues in humans, there are correlations among their innervation densities and their ability to trigger arousal. In new technical developments, we analyze transcriptional effects of estrogens in the hypothalamic neurons that regulate lordosis behavior. The rapid effect of estradiol to increase acetylation of histones in ventromedial hypothalamic neurons could be tied into transcriptional activation, but the effect of estradiol to increase methylation of histone 3, lysine 9 (H3K9) is puzzling. This work seeks to discover the coactivator dynamics underlying transcriptional effects of estrogens on sex behavior.