Motherhood and DREADD manipulation of the nucleus accumbens weaken established pair bonds in female prairie voles.

Autor: Forero SA; Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA., Sailer LL; Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA., Girčytė A; Department of Psychology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK., Madrid JE; Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA., Sullivan N; Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA., Ophir AG; Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. Electronic address: ophir@cornell.edu.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Hormones and behavior [Horm Behav] 2023 May; Vol. 151, pp. 105351. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Mar 30.
DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2023.105351
Abstrakt: Monogamous pair bonding has evolved to enhance reproductive success and ensure offspring survival. Although the behavioral and neural mechanisms regulating the formation of pair bonds have been relatively well outlined, how these relationships are regulated and maintained across the lifetime of an individual remains relatively unexplored. One way to explore this is to study the maintenance of a social bond across a major life-history transition. The transition to motherhood is among the most poignant moments in the life history of a female, and is associated with significant neural and behavioral changes and shifting priorities. The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is known to modulate social valence and is central to mammalian pair bonding. In this study, we investigated two mechanisms driving variation in bond strength in the socially monogamous prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster). We manipulated neural activity of the NAc at two distinct stages of life-history, before and after the birth of offspring, to assess how neural activity and social contexts modulate female pair bond strength. Our results showed DREADD (Designer Receptor Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs) inhibition of the NAc decreases affiliative behavior towards the mating partner, whereas DREADD activation of the NAc increases affiliative behavior of strangers, thereby decreasing social selectivity. We also found a robust "birth effect" on pair bond strength, such that bonds with partners were weakened after the birth of offspring, an effect not attributable to the amount of cohabitation time with a partner. Overall, our data support the hypotheses that NAc activity modulates reward/saliency within the social brain in different ways, and that motherhood comes with a cost for the bond strength between mating partners.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare we have no conflict of interest to disclose.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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