Dopamine and opioid systems interact within the nucleus accumbens to maintain monogamous pair bonds
- University of Michigan, United States
- University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States
- Wayne State University, United States
- Georgia State University, United States
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, United States
Abstract
Prairie vole breeder pairs form monogamous pair bonds, which are maintained through the expression of selective aggression toward novel conspecifics. Here, we utilize behavioral and anatomical techniques to extend the current understanding of neural mechanisms that mediate pair bond maintenance. For both sexes, we show that pair bonding up-regulates mRNA expression for genes encoding D1-like dopamine (DA) receptors and dynorphin as well as enhances stimulated DA release within the nucleus accumbens (NAc). We next show that D1-like receptor regulation of selective aggression is mediated through downstream activation of kappa-opioid receptors (KORs) and that activation of these receptors mediates social avoidance. Finally, we also identified sex-specific alterations in KOR binding density within the NAc shell of paired males and demonstrate that this alteration contributes to the neuroprotective effect of pair bonding against drug reward. Together, these findings suggest motivational and valence processing systems interact to mediate the maintenance of social bonds.
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Animal experimentation: All experiments in this study were performed in accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (#5531) of the University of Michigan. Experiments conducted in this study were approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee (#1331) at the University of Michigan. All surgery was performed under ketamine and xylazine anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.
Copyright
© 2016, Resendez et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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