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The couples went through similar processes, but when female partners lacked tails, the males performed fewer mounts, seemed to have trouble finding their way and completing the mating process. Pacheco pointed out that the males cannot see what they are doing, so the female's tail helps to guide their movements. "We think that the information supplied by the tail's sensory machinery modulates the pelvic thrust movements, helping the mechanism for the ejaculatory process as well as for the correct deposit of the semen," he said. The researchers do not believe tail length matters, since males tend to have longer tails than females and tail length varies among different types of rats. Anders Agmo, chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Tromso, Norway, happened to learn of Pacheco's research after he gave a talk on neurobiology in Mexico. He told Discovery News that his first reaction was one of "surprise and admiration." "Surprise, because it had never occurred to me to ask any questions about the importance of the tail for rat sex behavior and admiration because I immediately realized that it was an interesting and perhaps even important question," Agmo explained. He added that the findings could have human applications. Although people obviously don't have tails, much of the rat-tail information is transmitted through the spinal cord, and rat and human spinal cords are quite similar in their basic structure. "Several human sexual dysfunctions are related to sensory feedback from the genitals and the responses produced by this feedback," he said, explaining that premature ejaculation is one of the most common problems related to reduced reactivity to sensory feedback. Agmo believes, "If we could achieve a complete understanding of these neural mechanisms in a rat, we would certainly be able to better understand and treat human disorders."
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