Meeting Abstract

P3.9  Monday, Jan. 6 15:30  Dissociating sex from choice: Deciphering the neural basis of female mating decisions ZHENG, DJ*; DEANGELIS, R; HARRIS, RM; HOFMANN, HA; UT Austin, Austin TX; UT Austin, Austin TX; UT Austin, Austin TX; UT Austin, Austin TX djzheng@utexas.edu

Across vertebrates social decision-making processes are regulated by a conserved set of brain regions that comprise a Social-Decision-Making (SDM) network. Female mate choice is one of the most important decisions affecting fitness, yet the neural underpinnings of this process are not well understood. To gain insight into female mate choice we probed the SDM network activity of two species of cichlids with different mating systems across different points of the female reproductive cycle: Astatotilapia burtoni, a polygynous lekking species, and Amatitlania nigrofasciata, a monogamous species. In a dichotomous choice paradigm, female A. burtoni show preference for the male they eventually mate with only on the day of spawning, while on all other days she avoids this individual. Conversely, female A. nigrofasciata show mate preference several days before spawning, when a pairbond is formed. We then compared induction of the immediate-early gene c-FOS, a marker for neural activity, across the SDM network in females of both species on the day of spawning, on a day when the female A. burtoni has yet to spawn, and on the day when A. nigrofasciata shows preferences. By comparing across these four time points we can dissociate the substrates that modulate mate choice from those underlying sexual behavior. Our results provide novel insights into the mechanisms of complex decision-making.