Preoptic lesions increase the display of lordosis by male rats

Male rats do not normally show feminine patterns of sexual behavior even when injected with the ovarian hormones estrogen and progesterone. We find that brain lesions which damage the preoptic-anterior hypothalamic continuum augment the display of lordosis in hormone-treated male rats. The most effectively feminizing brain lesions are ones which bilaterally destroy a substantial portion of the medial preoptic area encompassing the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area (SDN-POA). Males with particularly large preoptic lesions are receptive following estrogen treatment and show a progesterone facilitation of receptivity. In this respect, they cannot be behaviorally distinguished from females. Thus, axons originating in and/or passing through the preoptic area apparently inhibit the display of feminine sexual behaviors in males. Preoptic development and lordosis are each predictably affected by perinatal stimulation by testicular hormones, and hormone-stimulated preoptic development may form the neurological basis for some of the defeminizing effects of perinatal hormonal exposure. Our results raise the possibility that the site of this behavioral defeminization is the SDN-POA.