Project description:Background Appropriate social interactions influence animal fitness by impacting several processes, such as mating, territory defense, and offspring care. Many studies shedding light on the neurobiological underpinnings of social behavior have focused on nonapeptides (vasopressin, oxytocin, and homologues) and on sexual or parent-offspring interactions. Furthermore, animals have been studied under artificial laboratory conditions, where the consequences of behavioral responses may not be as critical as when expressed under natural environments, therefore obscuring certain physiological responses. We used automated recording of social interactions of wild house mice outside of the breeding season to detect individuals at both tails of a distribution of egocentric network sizes (characterized by number of different partners encountered per day). We then used RNA-seq to perform an unbiased assessment of neural differences in gene expression in the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus and the hypothalamus between these mice with naturally occurring extreme differences in social network size. Results We found that the neurogenomic pathways associated with having extreme social network sizes differed between the sexes. In females, hundreds of genes were differentially expressed between animals with small and large social network sizes, whereas in males very few were. In males, X-chromosome inactivation pathways in the prefrontal cortex were the ones that better differentiated animals with small from those with large social network sizes animals. In females, animals with small network size showed up-regulation of dopaminergic production and transport pathways in the hypothalamus. Additionally, in females, extracellular matrix deposition on hippocampal neurons was higher in individuals with small relative to large social network size. Conclusions Studying neural substrates of natural variation in social behavior in traditional model organisms in their habitat can open new targets of research for understanding variation in social behavior in other taxa.
Project description:The lateral habenula (LHb) is an essential hub brain region modulating the monoamine system such as dopamine, serotonin. Hyperactivity of LHb has implications for psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia, which are commonly associated with social dysfunction. However, the role of LHb in social behavior has remained elusive. Here, we find that experiencing acute social isolation affects synaptic function in LHb and social behavior. After acute social isolation, long-term depression (LTD) in LHb is impaired and rescued by activating the 5-HT4 receptor (5-HT4R). Indeed, Htr4 expression in LHb is up-regulated following acute social isolation. Finally, acute social isolation enhances the social preference for familiars such as housing-mates to stranger conspecifics. Consistent with electrophysiological results, pharmacological activation of 5-HT4R in LHb restored innate social preference. These results suggest that acute social isolation influences social decisions with 5-HT4R-dependent synaptic modification in LHb.
Project description:After collection, live honeybees were brought to geneOmbio Technologies Central Processing Laboratory under controlled room temperature (25.9C, 72% RH) until dissection was made. The honeybees selected for analysis were collected from Pune region (18°31′13″N 73°51′24″E) from the state of Maharashtra, India. These were identified as Apis cerena based on mitochondrial COI gene sequencing. Ten honeybees were anaesthetized on ice and immediately dissected for isolation of mandibular glands using sterile scalpel
Project description:Social insects frequently engage in oral fluid exchange – trophallaxis – between adults, and between adults and larvae. Although trophallaxis is normally considered a simple food-sharing mechanism, we hypothesized that endogenous components of this fluid might underlie a novel means of chemical communication that directly influences colony organization. Through protein and small-molecule mass spectrometry and RNA sequencing in the ant Camponotus floridanus, we found that trophallactic fluid contains a set of specific proteins, hydrocarbons, microRNAs, and Juvenile Hormone, an important insect growth regulator. Comparison of trophallactic fluid proteins across social insect species (ants Camponotus fellah and Solenopsis invictis, honeybees Apis mellifera) revealed that many are regulators of growth and development. These results raise the possibility that, in addition to its role in food transfer, trophallaxis is a mode of communication that enables communal control of colony phenotypes.