Ultrasonic vocalizations induced by appetitive or aversive clitoral stimulation: foundations for an anticipatory-based model of female sexual reward and clitorodynia.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Adult rats make ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) that exhibit acoustic characteristics indicative of an immediate emotional state and its underlying neural activation. As an integral part of the rats' behavioral repertoire, USVs can be translated to human behavior, including clinical models of human diseases and disorders. Although female rats are used as predictive models of sexual function and dysfunction in women, their USVs have not yet been incorporated into existing preclinical behavioral paradigms. Female rats reliably emit USVs in response to the application of temporally-distributed, manual clitoral stimulation (CLS). It is unclear, however, whether the emissions are reflective of the hedonic properties of CLS or those of general arousal. Thus, the experiments in the thesis aimed to characterize the acoustic properties of CLS-elicited USVs to clarify their communicative function. The experiments described in Chapter 2 determined that female rats emit hedonic USVs when distributed CLS is delivered with a soft-bristle paintbrush. The ovarian hormones estradiol and progesterone modulated the acoustic parameters of hedonic USVs whereas chronic administration of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluoxetine attenuated their emission concurrently with decreases in sexually appetitive behaviors like solicitations. The experiments described in Chapter 3 explored whether altering the tactile quality of distributed CLS alters its hedonic value and its capacity to serve as a reinforcer in partner-preference conditioning. Compared to CLS applied with a soft-bristle brush, CLS applied with a hard-bristle brush elicited distinct subtypes of low frequency USVs associated with aversion. The experiment described in Chapter 4 found that the tactile quality of distributed CLS also altered the pattern of Fos protein expression in brain areas involved in sexual reward, aversion, and sensory integration. Exposure to a neutral odour previously associated with rough-bristle CLS increased the number of neurons expressing Fos protein in brain regions subserving aversive responses and decreased expression in regions subserving reward. An opposite pattern was expressed in response to the same odour associated with soft-bristle CLS, whereas the odour associated with sham CLS did not alter Fos expression in those areas. Taken together, the data show that CLS-induced USVs can be used as a measure of both appetitive and aversive sexual affect, as well as provide a foundational model of anticipatory-induced clitorodynia.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".