Social selectivity and social motivation in voles

  1. Annaliese K Beery  Is a corresponding author
  2. Sarah A Lopez
  3. Katrina L Blandino
  4. Nicole S Lee
  5. Natalie S Bourdon
  1. UC Berkeley, United States
  2. Smith College, United States
  3. University of Massachusetts Amherst, United States

Abstract

Selective relationships are fundamental to humans and many other animals, but relationships between mates, family members, or peers may be mediated differently. We examined connections between social reward and social selectivity, aggression, and oxytocin receptor signaling pathways in rodents that naturally form enduring, selective relationships with mates and peers (monogamous prairie voles) or peers (group-living meadow voles). Female prairie and meadow voles worked harder to access familiar vs. unfamiliar individuals, regardless of sex, and huddled extensively with familiar subjects. Male prairie voles displayed strongly selective huddling preferences for familiar animals, but only worked harder to repeatedly access females vs. males, with no difference in effort by familiarity. This reveals a striking sex difference in pathways underlying social monogamy, and demonstrates a fundamental disconnect between motivation and social selectivity in males-a distinction not detected by the partner preference test. Meadow voles exhibited social preferences but low social motivation, consistent with tolerance rather than reward supporting social groups in this species. Natural variation in oxytocin receptor binding predicted individual variation in prosocial and aggressive behaviors. These results provide a basis for understanding species, sex, and individual differences in the mechanisms underlying the role of social reward in social preference.

Data availability

Data have been deposited in a project folder on the Open Science Framework website, available at: https://osf.io/g2jf7/

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Annaliese K Beery

    UC Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
    For correspondence
    abeery@berkeley.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1249-9182
  2. Sarah A Lopez

    Smith College, Northampton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Katrina L Blandino

    Smith College, Northampton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Nicole S Lee

    University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Natalie S Bourdon

    Smith College, Northampton, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

National Institutes of Health (R15MH113085)

  • Annaliese K Beery

The funders had no role in study design, data collection or interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. Animals were handed according to a research protocol (ASAF 272) approved by the Institutional Care and use committee of Smith College.

Copyright

© 2021, Beery 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.

Metrics

  • 2,909
    views
  • 314
    downloads
  • 27
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Annaliese K Beery
  2. Sarah A Lopez
  3. Katrina L Blandino
  4. Nicole S Lee
  5. Natalie S Bourdon
(2021)
Social selectivity and social motivation in voles
eLife 10:e72684.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72684

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.72684

Further reading

    1. Neuroscience
    Simonas Griesius, Amy Richardson, Dimitri Michael Kullmann
    Research Article

    Non-linear summation of synaptic inputs to the dendrites of pyramidal neurons has been proposed to increase the computation capacity of neurons through coincidence detection, signal amplification, and additional logic operations such as XOR. Supralinear dendritic integration has been documented extensively in principal neurons, mediated by several voltage-dependent conductances. It has also been reported in parvalbumin-positive hippocampal basket cells, in dendrites innervated by feedback excitatory synapses. Whether other interneurons, which support feed-forward or feedback inhibition of principal neuron dendrites, also exhibit local non-linear integration of synaptic excitation is not known. Here, we use patch-clamp electrophysiology, and two-photon calcium imaging and glutamate uncaging, to show that supralinear dendritic integration of near-synchronous spatially clustered glutamate-receptor mediated depolarization occurs in NDNF-positive neurogliaform cells and oriens-lacunosum moleculare interneurons in the mouse hippocampus. Supralinear summation was detected via recordings of somatic depolarizations elicited by uncaging of glutamate on dendritic fragments, and, in neurogliaform cells, by concurrent imaging of dendritic calcium transients. Supralinearity was abolished by blocking NMDA receptors (NMDARs) but resisted blockade of voltage-gated sodium channels. Blocking L-type calcium channels abolished supralinear calcium signalling but only had a minor effect on voltage supralinearity. Dendritic boosting of spatially clustered synaptic signals argues for previously unappreciated computational complexity in dendrite-projecting inhibitory cells of the hippocampus.

    1. Neuroscience
    Jessica Royer, Valeria Kebets ... Boris C Bernhardt
    Research Article Updated

    Complex structural and functional changes occurring in typical and atypical development necessitate multidimensional approaches to better understand the risk of developing psychopathology. Here, we simultaneously examined structural and functional brain network patterns in relation to dimensions of psychopathology in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) dataset. Several components were identified, recapitulating the psychopathology hierarchy, with the general psychopathology (p) factor explaining most covariance with multimodal imaging features, while the internalizing, externalizing, and neurodevelopmental dimensions were each associated with distinct morphological and functional connectivity signatures. Connectivity signatures associated with the p factor and neurodevelopmental dimensions followed the sensory-to-transmodal axis of cortical organization, which is related to the emergence of complex cognition and risk for psychopathology. Results were consistent in two separate data subsamples and robust to variations in analytical parameters. Although model parameters yielded statistically significant brain–behavior associations in unseen data, generalizability of the model was rather limited for all three latent components (r change from within- to out-of-sample statistics: LC1within = 0.36, LC1out = 0.03; LC2within = 0.34, LC2out = 0.05; LC3within = 0.35, LC3out = 0.07). Our findings help in better understanding biological mechanisms underpinning dimensions of psychopathology, and could provide brain-based vulnerability markers.