Telencephalic and preoptic areas integrate sexual behavior in hime salmon (landlocked red salmon, Oncorhynchus nerka): results of electrical brain stimulation experiments.

Various patterns of sexual behavior were evoked in freely swimming hime salmon by electrical stimulation of specific loci in the telencephalon and the preoptic area (POA) using chronically implanted electrodes. Furthermore, co-ordinated sexual behavior corresponding to stages of the natural spawning sequence was elicited from some of these brain regions. These results suggest that (1) sexual behavior is integrated in specific parts of the telencephalon and POA, and (2) within these regions there is a hierarchy of neural systems which mediate progressively more complete components of normal sexual behavior.