Stimulation of the medical preoptic area facilitates sexual behavior but does not reverse sexual satiation.

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to establish whether electrical and/or drug stimulation of the medial preoptic area/anterior hypothalamus (mPOA/AH) surmounts the sexual behavior inhibition that results from copulation to exhaustion. Thus, intermittent electrical stimulation of the mPOA/AH (alone or combined with the systemic injection of yohimbine or apomorphine, at doses that were subthreshold for reversing sexual exhaustion) or intrapreoptic treatments to block GABAergic transmission were applied to sexually satiated rats. The results suggest that the mPOA/AH is not responsible for male sexual behavior inhibition or for the pharmacologically induced sexual behavior expression in satiated rats. Data are discussed in terms of the roles ascribed to the mPOA/AH, both in the control of sexual behavior expression and in the regulation of the postejaculatory interval.