Prolonged partner separation erodes nucleus accumbens transcriptional signatures of pair bonding in male prairie voles.

ABSTRACT: The loss of a spouse is often cited as the most traumatic event in a person's life. However, for most people, the severity of grief and its maladaptive effects subside over time via an understudied adaptive process. Like humans, socially monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) form opposite-sex pair bonds, and upon partner separation, show stress phenotypes that diminish over time. We test the hypothesis that extended partner separation diminishes pair bond-associated behaviors and causes pair bond transcriptional signatures to erode. Opposite-sex or same-sex paired males were cohoused for 2 weeks and then either remained paired or were separated for 48 hours or 4 weeks before collecting fresh nucleus accumbens tissue for RNAseq. In a separate cohort, we assessed partner-dir

SUBMITTER: Sadino JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10112888 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature