Oxytocin-mediated social enrichment promotes longer telomeres and novelty seeking
- University of Lethbridge, Canada
- Exceptional Education Organization, Iran, Islamic Republic of
- Babol University of Medical Science, Iran, Islamic Republic of
- Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Iran, Islamic Republic of
- Islamic Azad University, Iran, Islamic Republic of
- Avicenna Institute of Neuroscience, Iran, Islamic Republic of
Abstract
The quality of social relationships is a powerful determinant of lifetime health. Here, we explored the impact of social experiences on circulating oxytocin (OT) concentration, telomere length (TL) and novelty-seeking behaviour in male and female rats. Prolonged social housing raised circulating OT levels in both sexes while elongating TL only in females. Novelty-seeking behaviour in females was more responsive to social housing and increased OT levels than males. The OT antagonist (OT ANT) L-366,509 blocked the benefits of social housing in all conditions along with female-specific TL erosion and novelty-seeking deficit. Thus, females seem more susceptible than males to genetic and behavioural changes when the secretion of endogenous OT in response to social life is interrupted. Social enrichment may therefore provide a therapeutic avenue to promote stress resiliency and chances of healthy aging across generations.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data files have been provided for all Figures.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant #5519)
- Gerlinde AS Metz
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All procedures in this study were carried out in accordance with the National Institute of Health Guide to the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and were approved by the institutional animal care committee (Protocol No. 004674BGH; Avicenna Institute of Neuroscience-AINS).
Copyright
© 2018, Faraji 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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Oxytocin-mediated social enrichment promotes longer telomeres and novelty seeking
eLife 7:e40262.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.40262
Further reading
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Oxytocin makes rats more adventurous and protects their cells from ageing.
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- Neuroscience
Neurogenesis occurs in the adult brain in the hippocampal dentate gyrus, an area that contains neurons which are vulnerable to insults and injury, such as severe seizures. Previous studies showed that increasing adult neurogenesis reduced neuronal damage after these seizures. Because the damage typically is followed by chronic life-long seizures (epilepsy), we asked if increasing adult-born neurons would prevent epilepsy. Adult-born neurons were selectively increased by deleting the pro-apoptotic gene Bax from Nestin-expressing progenitors. Tamoxifen was administered at 6 weeks of age to conditionally delete Bax in Nestin-CreERT2Baxfl/fl mice. Six weeks after tamoxifen administration, severe seizures (status epilepticus; SE) were induced by injection of the convulsant pilocarpine. After mice developed epilepsy, seizure frequency was quantified for 3 weeks. Mice with increased adult-born neurons exhibited fewer chronic seizures. Postictal depression was reduced also. These results were primarily in female mice, possibly because they were more affected by Bax deletion than males, consistent with sex differences in Bax. The female mice with enhanced adult-born neurons also showed less neuronal loss of hilar mossy cells and hilar somatostatin-expressing neurons than wild-type females or males, which is notable because loss of these two hilar cell types is implicated in epileptogenesis. The results suggest that selective Bax deletion to increase adult-born neurons can reduce experimental epilepsy, and the effect shows a striking sex difference. The results are surprising in light of past studies showing that suppressing adult-born neurons can also reduce chronic seizures.
