Social isolation affects partner-directed social behavior and cortisol during pair formation in marmosets, Callithrix geoffroyi

Humans are extraordinarily social, and social isolation has profound effects on our behavior, ranging from increased social motivation following short periods of social isolation to increased anti-social behaviors following long-term social isolation. Mice are frequently used as a model to understand how social isolation impacts the brain and behavior. While the effects of chronic social isolation on mouse social behavior have been well studied, much less is known about how acute isolation impacts mouse social behavior and whether these effects vary according to the sex of the mouse and the behavioral context of the social encounter. To address these questions, we characterized the effects of acute (3-day) social isolation on the vocal and non-vocal social behaviors of male and female mice during same-sex and opposite-sex social interactions. Our experiments uncovered pronounced effects of acute isolation on social interactions between female mice, while revealing more subtle effects on the social behaviors of male mice during same-sex and opposite-sex interactions. Our findings advance the study of same-sex interactions between female mice as an attractive paradigm to investigate neural mechanisms through which acute isolation enhances social motivation and promotes social behavior.

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Long-Term Effects of Total Social Isolation Upon Behavior of Rhesus Monkeys

Psychological Reports ◽

10.2466/pr0.1966.18.2.567 ◽

1966 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 567-580 ◽

Cited By ~ 69

Author(s):

G. D. Mitchell ◽

E. J. Raymond ◽

G. C. Ruppenthal ◽

H. F. Harlow

Keyword(s):

Social Behavior ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Rhesus Monkeys ◽

First Year ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Follow Up Study

8 isolate monkeys were compared in a follow-up study to 8 sophisticated controls in brief cross-sectional pairings with 12 stimulus strangers: 4 adults, 4 age-mates, and 4 juveniles. The isolates were characterized by infantile disturbance, less environmental orality, more fear, more aggression, less sex, less play, and bizarre ritualistic movements. 12-mo. isolates were fearful and nonaggressive but threatened many attacks. 6-mo. isolates were fearful and physically aggressive. The 12-mo. isolates demonstrated practically no positive social behavior. Conclusions are: (a) 6 mo. of social isolation during the first year has negative effects on social behavior up to puberty, (b) abnormal aggression appears in 3-yr.-old 6-mo. isolates, and (c) 12 mo. of isolation suppress or delay this aggression.

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Disambiguating stress-buffering and relationship-renewal in reunions between female degus

10.1101/2020.07.07.191486 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Navdeep K. Lidhar ◽

Ayushi Thakur ◽

Anna-Julia David ◽

Kaori Takehara-Nishiuchi ◽

Nathan Insel

Keyword(s):

Social Behavior ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Adult Female ◽

General Interest ◽

Full Understanding ◽

Stress Buffering ◽

High Interaction ◽

Social Motivations ◽

Clustering Approach ◽

Vocal Interactions

AbstractA full understanding of a species’ sociality requires knowledge of their specific social motivations. Following social isolation, animals may show general interest in companionship as a buffer for stress or loneliness, but may also be driven to re-establish expectations and dyadic roles with individuals they had been previously separated from. By deconstructing social behavior across experimental manipulations, it may become possible to disentangle these motivational factors. Physical and vocal interactions were recorded from adult female degu dyads during a series of 20 minute reunion sessions across four experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 found that degu interactions increased following isolation, but also increased after dyads were separated without isolation from other conspecifics. Isolation resulted in more early-session interactions, higher allogrooming before rear-sniffing, and a higher ratio of chitter to non-chitter vocalizations. Experiment 3 showed that a non-social, footshock stressor selectively increased early-session interaction, and Experiment 4 revealed high interaction rates between strangers, with more non-chitter vocalizations and late-session rear-sniffing, and reduced pre-rear-sniff allogrooming. A novel, repeated-k-means clustering approach helped to further specify differences in vocalizations between conditions; e.g., “chaff”-type syllables were more common when relationships were new or potentially being renewed. Results suggest that degus are motivated to establish or re-establish expectations with one-another, and these interactions can differ from those associated with the stress of isolation.

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Monoacylglycerol lipase inhibition alters social behavior in male and female rats after post-weaning social isolation

Behavioural Brain Research ◽

10.1016/j.bbr.2017.12.038 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 341 ◽

pp. 146-153 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Jazmin Fontenot ◽

Esteban C. Loetz ◽

Matthew Ishiki ◽

Sondra T. Bland

Keyword(s):

Social Behavior ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Female Rats ◽

Monoacylglycerol Lipase ◽

Male And Female ◽

Male And Female Rats ◽

Lipase Inhibition

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Sickness and the Social Brain: Love in the Time of COVID

Frontiers in Psychiatry ◽

10.3389/fpsyt.2021.633664 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Caroline J. Smith ◽

Staci D. Bilbo

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Social Behavior ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Group Living ◽

Immunological Response ◽

Sickness Behavior ◽

Well Being ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

The Social ◽

Males And Females

As a highly social species, inclusion in social networks and the presence of strong social bonds are critical to our health and well-being. Indeed, impaired social functioning is a component of numerous neuropsychiatric disorders including depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, our social networks are at risk of fracture and many are vulnerable to the negative consequences of social isolation. Importantly, infection itself leads to changes in social behavior as a component of “sickness behavior.” Furthermore, as in the case of COVID-19, males and females often differ in their immunological response to infection, and, therefore, in their susceptibility to negative outcomes. In this review, we discuss the many ways in which infection changes social behavior—sometimes to the benefit of the host, and in some instances for the sake of the pathogen—in species ranging from eusocial insects to humans. We also explore the neuroimmune mechanisms by which these changes in social behavior occur. Finally, we touch upon the ways in which the social environment (group living, social isolation, etc.) shapes the immune system and its ability to respond to challenge. Throughout we emphasize how males and females differ in their response to immune activation, both behaviorally and physiologically.

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Dreaming during the Covid-19 pandemic: Computational assessment of dream reports reveals mental suffering related to fear of contagion

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0242903 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (11) ◽

pp. e0242903

Author(s):

Natália Bezerra Mota ◽

Janaina Weissheimer ◽

Marina Ribeiro ◽

Mizziara de Paiva ◽

Juliana Avilla-Souza ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Natural Language Processing ◽

Social Behavior ◽

Natural Language ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Language Processing ◽

Negative Emotions ◽

Social Distancing ◽

New Challenges ◽

Social Habits ◽

Global Threat

The current global threat brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic has led to widespread social isolation, posing new challenges in dealing with metal suffering related to social distancing, and in quickly learning new social habits intended to prevent contagion. Neuroscience and psychology agree that dreaming helps people to cope with negative emotions and to learn from experience, but can dreaming effectively reveal mental suffering and changes in social behavior? To address this question, we applied natural language processing tools to study 239 dream reports by 67 individuals, made either before the Covid-19 outbreak or during the months of March and April, 2020, when lockdown was imposed in Brazil following the WHO’s declaration of the pandemic. Pandemic dreams showed a higher proportion of anger and sadness words, and higher average semantic similarities to the terms “contamination” and “cleanness”. These features seem to be associated with mental suffering linked to social isolation, as they explained 40% of the variance in the PANSS negative subscale related to socialization (p = 0.0088). These results corroborate the hypothesis that pandemic dreams reflect mental suffering, fear of contagion, and important changes in daily habits that directly impact socialization.

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A novel escapable social interaction test reveals that social behavior and mPFC activation during an escapable social encounter are altered by post-weaning social isolation and are dependent on the aggressiveness of the stimulus rat

Behavioural Brain Research ◽

10.1016/j.bbr.2016.09.025 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 317 ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Dayton J. Goodell ◽

Megan A. Ahern ◽

Jessica Baynard ◽

Vanessa L. Wall ◽

Sondra T. Bland

Keyword(s):

Social Interaction ◽

Social Behavior ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Social Interaction Test ◽

Social Encounter ◽

Interaction Test

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S189. PREFRONTAL PARVALBUMIN INTERNEURONS REQUIRE JUVENILE SOCIAL EXPERIENCE TO ESTABLISH ADULT SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Schizophrenia Bulletin ◽

10.1093/schbul/sbaa031.255 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S110-S110

Author(s):

Lucy Bicks ◽

Kazuhiko Yamamuro ◽

Meghan Flanigan ◽

Elizabeth Lucas ◽

Hiroyuki Koike ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Social Behavior ◽

Psychiatric Disorders ◽

Social Isolation ◽

Social Experience ◽

Designer Drugs ◽

Social Approach ◽

Adult Mice ◽

Behavior Development ◽

Social Processing

Abstract Background Social isolation during developmental critical windows could be highly detrimental to proper functioning of mature prefrontal cortex (PFC) and establishment of appropriate adult behaviors. However, the specific circuits that undergo social experience-dependent maturation to regulate social behavior development are poorly understood. Social processing is a domain that is commonly dysregulated in psychiatric disorders including Schizophrenia, and is poorly treated by available psychiatric medications. In humans and rodents, portions of the evolutionarily conserved medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are part of a network that regulates social behavior. Many disorders with shared social processing deficits show impairments in inhibitory neurotransmission within the brain, particularly in the mPFC, suggesting a role for PFC inhibitory action in regulating social behavior. Parvalbumin expressing interneurons (PVIs) are one of the major subclasses of inhibitory neurons, implicated in psychiatric disorders. Here we aim to examine a contribution of PVIs in mPFC for social behavior development in mice. Methods We use juvenile social isolation (jSI) during a 2-week sensitive window immediately following weaning and test social behavior in adult mice using the 3-chamber test and reciprocal interaction test. To investigate the causal contribution of mPFC-PVIs in social behavior of adult mice, we leveraged chemogenetic technologies. We selectively expressed hM4Di, an inhibitory DREADD (Designer Receptor Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs), or hM3Dq an excitatory DREADD in the adult mPFC-PVIs and manipulated mPFC-PVI activity acutely using the selective DREADD agonist, Clozapine-N-oxide (CNO). To test the activity of mPFC-PVIs in response to social experience we used in vivo imaging of calcium transients by fiber photometry. Results We identified a specific activation pattern of parvalbumin-positive interneurons (PVIs) in dorsal-medial PFC (dmPFC) prior to an active bout, or a bout initiated by the focal mouse, but not during a passive bout when mice are explored by a stimulus mouse. Optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulation revealed that brief dmPFC-PVI activation triggers an active social approach to promote sociability. Juvenile social isolation critically decoupled dmPFC-PVI activation from subsequent active social approach by “freezing” the functional maturation process of dmPFC-PVIs during the juvenile-to-adult transition. Chemogenetic activation of dmPFC-PVI activity in the adult animal mitigated juvenile isolation-induced social deficits. Discussion These results demonstrate that PVI development in the juvenile mPFC is critically linked to long-term impacts on social behavior. Our study implicates mPFC PVIs as promising cellular targets for future therapeutic development on social impairments in psychiatric disorders such as Schizophrenia.

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