THE SELECTIVITY OF SEXUAL-RESPONSES TO SONG DISPLAYS - EFFECTS OF PARTIAL CHEMICAL LESION OF THE HVC IN FEMALE CANARIES

By stimulating female canaries with computer edited songs, are investi gated the involvement of the caudal nucleus of the ventral hyperstriat um or high vocal center (HVC) in the selectivity of sexual responsiven ess to different kinds of conspecific songs. Due to the fact that the types of conspecific song phrases act as relevant cues to give song it s sexual potency, we compared courtship responses to two conspecific s ongs, highly sexually-stimulating and weakly sexually-stimulating song , before and after the partial ibotenate lesion of the HVC. Sexual res ponses to heterospecific song were also tested. Copulation solicitatio n displays were used as an index of female responses. The partial chem ical lesions of the HVC whatever the HVC portion damaged affected fema le bird behavior; they responded more strongly to weakly sexually-stim ulating song and to heterospecific song than before the lesions. Howev er, the conspecific sexually attractive song continued to elicit the h ighest level of sexual displays. None of the control birds ever altere d their pattern of responses to the three song types. The results sugg est that the HVC is part of the neural network engaged in the control of sexual preferences to conspecific song displays. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.