MAMMALS use pheromones as chemical messengers, for example to attract a mate. But exactly how the signal is transmitted to the animals’ nervous system has remained a mystery – until now.
Pheromones are thought to be detected by a structure in the nose called the vomeronasal organ. Genes belonging to a family called V1r are known to control sexual and other social behaviours in mice. So Ivan Rodriguez and his colleagues from the University of Geneva in Switzerland used a green fluorescent dye to tag neurons from the vomeronasal organ that express a V1r gene.
When they exposed the neurons to…
