Neural pathway that couples ejaculation and copulation duration in flies

摘要

In many animals that reproduce sexually, the timing of ejaculation is coordinated with the duration of mating. But it remains unclear whether ejaculation determines the duration of copulation. Timothy Tayler et al. (pp. 20697-20702) investigated the question by manipulating the activity of specific subpopulations of neurons that regulate ejaculation in Drosophila. The authors found that blocking the activity of four male-specific abdominal interaeurons that express the neuropeptide corazonin impaired ejaculation and increased the duration of copulation five-fold.