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Newborn mice form lasting CA2-dependent memories of their mothers.

ABSTRACT: Some of the most enduring social connections begin when infants first recognize their caregivers, memories that form the basis of many family relationships. It remains unknown whether these early social memories persist into adulthood in mice and, if so, which brain regions support them. Here we show that mice form memories of their mother within days after birth and that these memories persist into adulthood. Pups display greater interest in the mother than in an unfamiliar dam before weaning, after which this preference reverses. Inhibition of CA2 neurons in the pup temporarily blocks the ability to discriminate between the mother and an unfamiliar dam, whereas doing so in adulthood prevents the formation of short-term memories about conspecifics, as well as social discrimination related to long-term memories of the mother. These results suggest that the CA2 supports memories of the mother during infancy and adulthood with a developmental switch in social preference.

SUBMITTER: Laham BJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7985754 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Newborn mice form lasting CA2-dependent memories of their mothers.

Laham Blake J BJ Diethorn Emma J EJ Gould Elizabeth E

Cell reports 20210101 4

Some of the most enduring social connections begin when infants first recognize their caregivers, memories that form the basis of many family relationships. It remains unknown whether these early social memories persist into adulthood in mice and, if so, which brain regions support them. Here we show that mice form memories of their mother within days after birth and that these memories persist into adulthood. Pups display greater interest in the mother than in an unfamiliar dam before weaning, ...[more]

PMID: 33503421

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Project description:Mice offer a wealth of opportunities for investigating brain circuits regulating multiple behaviors, largely due to their genetic tractability. Social behaviors are of translational relevance, considering both mice and humans are highly social mammals, and disruptions in human social behavior are key symptoms of myriad neuropsychiatric disorders. Stresses related to social experiences are particularly influential in the severity and maintenance of neuropsychiatric disorders like anxiety disorders, and trauma and stressor-related disorders. Yet, induction and study of social stress in mice is disproportionately focused on males, influenced heavily by their natural territorial nature. Conspecific-elicited stress (i.e., defeat), while ethologically relevant, is quite variable and predominantly specific to males, making rigorous and sex-inclusive studies challenging. In pursuit of a controllable, consistent, high throughput, and sex-inclusive paradigm for eliciting social stress, we have discovered intriguing sex-specific social aversions that are dependent upon the sex of both experimental and conspecific mice. Specifically, we trained male and female F1 129S1/SvlmJ × C57BL/6J mice to associate (via classical conditioning) same or different sex C57BL/6J conspecifics with a mild, aversive stimulus. Upon subsequent testing for social interaction 24 h later, we found that males socially conditioned better to male conspecifics by exhibiting reduced social interaction, whereas females socially conditioned better to male conspecifics. Serum corticosterone levels inversely corresponded to social avoidance after different sex, but not same sex, conditioning, suggesting corticosterone-mediated arousal could influence cross sex interactions. While our paradigm has further optimization ahead, these current findings reveal why past pursuits to develop same sex female social stress paradigms may have met with limited success. Future research should expand investigation of utilizing male mouse conspecifics to instigate social stress across sexes.

Dataset Information

Newborn mice form lasting CA2-dependent memories of their mothers.

Publications

Newborn mice form lasting CA2-dependent memories of their mothers.

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