I ran across a Reuters story on Yahoo News the other day, telling how researchers had changed the sexual prefences of female mice by altering the functionality of a certain organ in them that processes pheromones, the vomeronasal organ.

Now, for those that might not know about pheromones, I'll quote the article's one line explaination: Pheromones are chemical signals that many animals, including humans, use to communicate socially and sexually.

According to the article, female mice who were bred with the organ 'disabled' or those that had the organ surgically disconnected would engage in typically male sexual behavior. In both cases, the females pursued cage mates aggressively, sniffing their rears and mounting them. They turned to other male mating behaviors, such as pelvic thrusts, while eschewing typically female roles like nesting and nursing. The females did not limit themselves to males, with some trying to mate with other females. It turns out female mice need the vomeronasal organ to tell the sexes apart, just as males have in earlier studies, the researchers said.

However, this research does not directly apply to upper primates or Homo Sapiens, as we lack the organ targeted in this study. The role of pheromones in humans is more controversial, according to Mark Breedlove, a neuroscientist at Michigan State University not involved in the study.

Now, before you say so what, here's the kicker. Quoting Breedlove: "This comes as a surprise to think that the neural circuitry for male behavior had been sitting in the female brain all this time."

"On the other hand, it does make you wonder if humans also contain both sets of neural circuitry in the brain, and if something other than odors is responsible for determining which set we'll use as we grow up."

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

The entire article can be found at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070807/od_nm/mice_sex_dc_3;_ylt...

Karen J.