Abstract
The affective state induced by sensory stimuli changes to adaptively modify behaviors that are critical for survival and reproduction. In European starlings, during the spring breeding season, male courtship song is rewarding to females, but only to those that possess resources that are necessary for reproduction (i.e., nesting sites). In fall, starling song is non-sexual and proposed to maintain flocks. This suggests that in fall it may be adaptive for females to be rewarded by fall rather than spring, courtship song. We used a conditioned place preference (CPP) test to evaluate song-induced affective state in fall condition females and quantitative real-time PCR to measure expression of genes that modulate affective state (CB(1) endocannabinoid and D(1) dopamine receptors) in brain regions that were previously implicated in song-induced reward (i.e., the medial preoptic nucleus (mPOA) and ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH)). Fall condition females developed an aversion to a place that had been paired with playback of both male fall and courtship song, indicating that in general male song induces a negative affective state outside the breeding season. Song-induced aversion was stronger in birds conditioned towards an initial place preference. For mPOA, CB(1) receptor expression correlated positively with fall and spring song-induced CPP. D(1) receptor expression correlated negatively with fall (but not spring) song-induced CPP, and the ratio of CB(1) to D(1) receptor expression correlated positively with fall (but not spring) song-induced CPP. These correlations suggest that interactions between D(1) and CB(1) receptors in mPOA may play a role in modifying affective responses to song.