"Monogamy in Voles?"

"Monogamy

in Voles?"

Dr. Larry Young, associate

professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of the

Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at Emory University, will indeed be

speaking on true love in field mice (the more common term for a vole)

as the opening speaker in Clayton College and State University's annual

Biology Seminar Series, Thursday, Jan. 22, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:20 p.m.,

in room 10 of the University's Lecture Hall.

Monogamy is actually extremely

rare in mammals. Among the 4,000 or so mammalian species, only a few stay

true to their mates ... and field mice aren't generally one of the

faithful few. However, Young and his colleagues at Emory have found a

way to engender true love - or something close to it - in voles. Through

viral gene therapy in the brains of test subjects, Young has found a way

to make male voles more faithful to females and even more friendly to

fellow males.

"This week's talk

should be amazing," said Dr. Greg Hampikian, associate professor

of Biology at Clayton State and coordinator of the Biology Seminar Series.

"Larry Young studies monogamy in voles. It seems that some species

of voles are monogamous and other not. He has identified the area in the

brain responsible, and even the gene. Now he has the gene on a viral vector

and injects it into non-monogamous voles."

In addition to creating faithful

mice, Young's work has the potential for far wider applications,

including shedding light on human bonding disorders such as autism. Young

also suggests that his work might be relevant to humans' inherent

sociality.

Young's address at Clayton

State is free and open to the public. For more information on the Biology

Seminar Series, go to https://a-s.clayton.edu/hampikian/b4500/sp2004/default.htm.

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