Sex differences in neural representations of social and nonsocial reward in the medial prefrontal cortex.

ABSTRACT: The reinforcing nature of social interactions is necessary for the maintenance of appropriate social behavior. However, the neural substrates underlying social reward processing and how they might differ based on the sex and internal state of the animal remains unknown. It is also unclear whether these neural substrates are shared with those involved in nonsocial rewarding processing. We developed a fully automated, two choice (social-sucrose) operant assay in which mice choose between social and nonsocial rewards to directly compare the reward-related behaviors associated with two competing stimuli. We performed cellular resolution calcium imaging of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) neurons in male and female mice across varying states of water restriction and social isolation. We found th

SUBMITTER: Isaac J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11399386 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature