Neuron. The Hong team reveals how neural networks in the brain recognize and encode gender.

Accurate identification of the gender of the same species is the most important basis for the behavior of animals in nature, which directly affects each behavior decision of animals and the survival and reproduction of individuals.how neural networks in the brain participate in the recognition and coding of gender information has always been one of the important research fields of brain science.previous studies in mice focused on the role of subcortical structures such as amygdala and hypothalamus in the recognition and coding of gender information, and believed that the neural processing of gender information in the brain was completed by the neural network in the subcortical structure.however, how the neural information encoding gender is processed by the complex neural networks in the cerebral cortex, how it integrates with other information, and how it affects the behavior of animals remains to be studied.on July 13, 2020, the research team of Professor Hong weizhe of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), whose co first authors are Lyle Kingsbury and Dr. Huang Shan, published the latest research results entitled "cortical representations of specific sex shape social behavior [1], which is Lyle Another important discovery made by Kingsbury and Dr. Huang Shan following the "synchronous neural activity between different brains in social behavior" published in cell magazine in June 2019 (see bioart report: synchronous neural activity between different brains in cell | social behavior).in this study, the neural signals generated by hundreds of neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of mice were recorded by using miniaturized microendoscope.the authors found that even in the prefrontal cortex, which processes highly complex information, neural cells can encode gender.this kind of neural coding for gender is common in both excitatory and inhibitory neurons, but inhibitory neurons have more sex coding cells than excitatory neurons.more interestingly, in the prefrontal cortex of male mice, there were more neurons encoding female companions than males.this is consistent with what we have observed in behavioral experiments: male mice interact more with female mice.this led the authors to speculate that gender encoded neuronal activity in the prefrontal cortex might be involved in behavioral decision-making among mice to some extent.although male mice interact more with female mice in general, there are some individual differences in gender preference of mice.by analyzing the neural signals and their coding in these mice, the authors found that there were also individual differences in the neural coding of gender in the cerebral cortex.it is particularly interesting that there is a significant correlation between individual differences in behavior and individual differences in neural coding.in order to prove that gender coding neurons in prefrontal cortex can influence or even determine the behavior of gender preference in mice, the authors used an activity-dependent labeling strategy to activate the neurons encoding gender.they found that activation of neurons encoding female information led to more interaction between mice and female mice, while activation of neurons encoding male information enabled mice to interact more with male mice.to sum up, Professor Hong weizhe's team has revealed the neural mechanism of gender recognition and coding in the cerebral cortex through micro fluorescence microscopy and photogenetic methods, and found that the neural activities encoding gender in the cortex can predict the individual's preference for different genders. these findings are of great significance to the study and understanding of neural networks of animal behavior. Kingsbury L, Huang s, RAAM T, Cheng L, Wei D, Hu R, ye L, Hong W. cortical representations of specific sex shape social behavior. Nerve. 2020.2. Kingsbury L, Huang s, Wang J, Gu K, golshani P, Wu y, Hong W. related neural activity and encoding of behavior across brains of socially interacting animals. Cell. 2019. 178(2): 429-446