Serotonin and sexual behaviour

Sexual behaviour is a species-typical behaviour intimately tied to the morphological and physiological features of the species. Stereotyped within species, and variable across species, mating is the final result of the action of many influences, including environmental stimulation, sensory-motor and integrative mechanisms of the nervous system, and gonadal hormones. Sexual behaviour can be studied from any of these aspects. Our growing understanding of the physiological mechanisms of sexual behaviour, provides a bases for generalization across the species, making this behaviour ideally suited for assaying drug effects on animal behaviour, a research ultimately done for the benefit of the human. Knowledge in these areas of research is mainly based on experiments performed on rats, explaining the apparent bias towards this species in this communication. Following a description of the male and female rat sexual behaviour, subsequent sections will be devoted to the role of sertonin in these behaviours. Our own pharmacological research has been centered around the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) receptor agonist 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino) tetralin (8-OH-DPAT) with selectivity for 5-HT1a recptors. The specific effects of this compound were first characterized by observing for effects on male rat sexual behaviour and our attention will be focussed on the role of serotinin in this behaviour.