Orexin neuron activity in mating mice - a pilot study

Mating behaviours affect hypothalamic orexin/hypocretin neurons and vice versa. However, activity of orexin neurons has not been recorded during mating before. We report an anecdotal dataset of freely-moving miniature microscope recordings of orexin neuron activity during mating behaviours, as well as an oral sexual encounter previously undocumented in mice. Across the orexin neuron population in the male, firing rates were maximally diverse during ejaculation, similarly diverse though weaker during intromission, and inverse to this during anterior thrusting. In the female mouse, orexin neurons tended to decrease firing during intromission after a transient increase. We provide this brief dataset for re-use, to enable further studies of these rare behaviours with challenging surgical preparations. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement DRIVOME (grant agreement 701986). The experiments in this study were supported by the Francis Crick Institute which receives its core funding from Cancer Research UK (FC001055), the UK Medical Research Council (FC001055), and the Wellcome Trust (FC001055). peerReviewed publishedVersion