Territoriality is an adaptive behavioral trait that is important for animal's fitness and there still remains much to learn about the proximate mechanisms underlying the development of territoriality. We speculate that the formation of a conditioned place preference (CPP), an increased time allocation to the environment where a rewarding experience occurred, contributes to territoriality. Testosterone (T) plays an important role in modulating territorial behaviors and T pulses can induce a CPP. We confirmed previous findings in California mice (Peromyscus californicus) that T pulses can induce a CPP in singly-housed, but not group-housed males. Housing singly may be similar enough to dispersal in nature to initiate similar hormonal and neuroanatomical changes needed for the development of territoriality. We further revealed that T pulses interact with the single housing experience and appear to enhance the motivation to be aggressive towards a stimulus male. On a neural level, being singly housed upregulated levels of androgen receptors in the preoptic area, which positively correlated with the strength of the CPP. We speculate that this change in androgen sensitivity in the preoptic area is characteristic of males that have dispersed, making them more sensitive to T pulses. Also, single housing increased markers of synaptic plasticity in the nucleus accumbens, ventral and dorsal hippocampus, neural changes that may be associated with dispersal, reproduction and territory establishment. These behavioral and neural changes may reflect the life history transition from residing in the natal territory to dispersing and establishing a new territory.

中文翻译：

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与位置偏好相关的睾丸激素相关的行为和神经机制：领土建立的模型。

地域性是一种适应性的行为特征，对动物的适应性很重要，关于地域性发展的潜在机制仍有许多知识要学习。我们推测，条件性位置偏好（CPP）的形成，即分配给发生奖励性体验的环境的时间增加，有助于地域性。睾丸激素（T）在调节领土行为中起重要作用，而T脉冲可诱发CPP。我们证实了加利福尼亚小鼠（Peromyscus californicus）的先前发现，即T脉冲可在单房雄性而非群房雄性中诱导CPP。单独居住可能足以在自然界中扩散，从而引发领土发展所需的类似激素和神经解剖学变化。我们进一步发现，T脉冲与单次居住经历相互作用，并且似乎增强了对刺激性雄性进取的动机。在神经水平上，被单独安置在视前区中雄激素受体的上调水平，这与CPP的强度呈正相关。我们推测，在视前区雄激素敏感性的这种变化是已经分散的雄性的特征，使它们对T脉冲更加敏感。同样，单个外壳增加了伏伏核，腹侧和背侧海马突触可塑性，神经变化的标志物，这些神经变化可能与扩散，繁殖和区域形成有关。这些行为和神经变化可能反映了生活史的转变，从居住在出生地到分散并建立新的领土。