Females exhibit complex, dynamic behaviors during mating with variable sexual receptivity depending on hormonal status^1–4. However, how their brains encode the dynamics of mating and receptivity remains largely unknown. The ventromedial hypothalamus, ventro-lateral subdivision contains estrogen receptor type 1-positive neurons that control mating receptivity in female mice^5,6. Unsupervised dynamical systems analysis of calcium imaging data from these neurons during mating uncovered a dimension with slow ramping activity, generating a line attractor in neural state space. Neural perturbations in behaving females demonstrated relaxation of population activity back into the attractor. During mating population activity integrated male cues to ramp up along this attractor, peaking just before ejaculation. Activity in the attractor dimension was positively correlated with the degree of receptivity. Longitudinal imaging revealed that attractor dynamics appear and disappear across the estrus cycle and are hormone-dependent. These observations suggest that a hypothalamic line attractor encodes a persistent, escalating state of female sexual arousal or drive during mating. They also demonstrate that attractors can be reversibly modulated by hormonal status, on a timescale of days.

雌性在交配过程中表现出复杂、动态的行为，性接受能力随荷尔蒙状态而变化^1-4 。然而，它们的大脑如何编码交配和接受的动态仍然很大程度上未知。下丘脑腹内侧部腹外侧部分含有 1 型雌激素受体阳性神经元，可控制雌性小鼠的交配接受能力^5,6 。对交配过程中这些神经元的钙成像数据进行无监督动态系统分析，发现了一个具有缓慢斜坡活动的维度，从而在神经状态空间中产生了线吸引子。行为女性的神经扰动表明种群活动松弛回到吸引子。在交配过程中，种群活动整合了雄性线索，沿着这个吸引子加速，在射精前达到顶峰。吸引子维度的活动与接受程度呈正相关。纵向成像显示，吸引子动力学在整个发情周期中出现和消失，并且是激素依赖性的。这些观察结果表明，下丘脑线吸引子编码交配过程中女性性唤起或性冲动的持续不断升级的状态。他们还证明，吸引子可以在几天的时间尺度上通过激素状态进行可逆调节。