Perinatal and juvenile social environments interact to shape cognitive behaviour and neural phenotype in prairie voles.

ABSTRACT: Social environments experienced at different developmental stages profoundly shape adult behavioural and neural phenotypes, and may have important interactive effects. We asked if social experience before and after weaning influenced adult social cognition in male prairie voles. Animals were raised either with or without fathers and then either housed singly or in sibling pairs. Males that were socially deprived before (fatherless) and after (singly housed) weaning did not demonstrate social recognition or dissociate spatial from social information. We also examined oxytocin and vasopressin receptors (OTR and V1aR) in areas of the forebrain associated with social behaviour and memory. Pre- and post-wean experience differentially altered receptor expression in several structures. Of note, O

SUBMITTER: Prounis GS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4685825 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature