Short-term social isolation acts on hypothalamic neurons to promote social behavior in a sex- and context-dependent manner.

ABSTRACT: Social animals, including both humans and mice, are highly motivated to engage in social interactions. Short-term social isolation promotes social behavior, but the neural circuits through which it does so remain incompletely understood. Here, we sought to identify neurons that promote social behavior in single-housed female mice, which exhibit increased rates of social investigation, social ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), and mounting during same-sex interactions that follow a period of short-term (3 days) isolation. We first used immunostaining for the immediate early gene Fos to identify a population of neurons in the preoptic hypothalamus (POA) that increase their activity in single-housed females following same-sex interactions (POA_social neurons) but not in single-housed

SUBMITTER: Zhao X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11879111 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature