The goal of this study is to understand the relationships between motivated behaviors, such as feeding, drinking, aggression and sexual behaviors, and the chemistry of the brain. Neurotransmitters are chemicals released by nerve cells to communicate with other nerve cells. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter thought to be involved in motivation and reward. In this study the relationships between changes in levels of dopamine and the expression of the motivational components of sexual behavior in female hamsters will be examined. Dopamine will be sampled from specific parts of the brain to determine which attributes of the male effectively contribute to the rise in dopamine levels, what effects prior sexual experience have on the response to the male, and whether conditioned stimuli associated with sexual behavior will induce a rise in dopamine. Studies will be also be done to identify the nerve cells in the brain that release this dopamine. The results of this study will contribute to our understanding of the role of dopamine in sexual behavior. The results of the study could also have important implications for our understanding of drug abuse, since several types of additive drugs have dopamine-like action on brain cells.
