scholarly journals Insular cortex corticotropin-releasing factor integrates stress signaling with social decision making.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel S Rieger ◽  
Juan A Varela ◽  
Alexandra J Ng ◽  
Lauren Granata ◽  
Anthony Djerdjaj ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Pyramidal Neurons ◽  
Cannabinoid Receptor ◽  
Insular Cortex ◽  
Corticotropin Releasing Factor ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Social Investigation ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Male And Female Rats ◽  
Social Decision Making

Impairments in social cognition manifest in a variety of psychiatric disorders, making the neurobiological mechanisms underlying social decision making of particular translational importance. The insular cortex is consistently implicated in stress-related social and anxiety disorders, which are associated with diminished ability to make and use inferences about the emotions of others to guide behavior. We investigated how corticotropin releasing factor (CRF), a neuromodulator evoked by both self and social stressors, influenced the insula. In acute slices from male and female rats, CRF depolarized insular pyramidal neurons. In males, but not females, CRF suppressed presynaptic GABAergic inhibition leading to greater excitatory synaptic efficacy in a CRF receptor 1 (CRF1) and cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) dependent fashion. In males only, insular CRF increased social investigation, and CRF1 and CB1 antagonists interfered with social decision making. To investigate the molecular and cellular basis for the effect of CRF we examined insular CRF1 and CB1 mRNAs and found greater total insula CRF1 mRNA in females but greater CRF1 and CB1 mRNA colocalization in male insular cortex glutamatergic neurons which suggest complex, sex-specific organization of CRF and endocannabinoid systems. Together these results reveal a new sex-specific mechanism by which stress and affect contribute to social decision making.

scholarly journals Insular Cortex Projections to Nucleus Accumbens Core Mediate Social Approach to Stressed Juvenile Rats

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan M. Rogers-Carter ◽  
Anthony Djerdjaj ◽  
Katherine B. Gribbons ◽  
Juan A. Varela ◽  
John P. Christianson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Nucleus Accumbens ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Insular Cortex ◽  
Male Rat ◽  
Nucleus Accumbens Core ◽  
Social Approach ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Social Decision Making ◽  
Accumbens Core

Social interactions are shaped by features of the interactants including age, emotion, sex and familiarity. Age-specific responses to social affect are evident when an adult male rat is presented with a pair of unfamiliar male conspecifics, one of which is stressed via 2 footshocks and the other naïve to treatment. Adult test rats prefer to interact with stressed juvenile (PN30) conspecifics, but avoid stressed adult (PN50) conspecifics. This pattern depends upon the insular cortex (IC) which is anatomically connected to the nucleus accumbens core (NAc). The goal of this work was to test the necessity of IC projections to NAc during social affective behavior. Here, bilateral pharmacological inhibition of the NAc with tetrodotoxin (1µM; 0.5ul/side) abolished the preference for stressed PN30, but did not alter interactions with PN50 conspecifics. Using a combination of retrograding tracing and c-Fos immunohistochemistry, we report that social interactions with stressed PN30 conspecifics elicit greater Fos immunoreactivity in IC → NAc neurons than interactions with naïve PN30 conspecifics. Chemogenetic stimulation of IC terminals in the NAc increased social exploration with juvenile, but not adult, conspecifics, while chemogenetic inhibition of this tract blocked the preference to investigate stressed PN30 conspecifics, which expands upon our previous finding that optogenetic inhibition of IC projection neurons mediated approach and avoidance. These new findings suggest that outputs of IC to the NAc modulate social approach, which provides new insight to the neural circuitry underlying social decision-making.Significance StatementSocial decision-making underlies an animal’s behavioral response to others in a range of social contexts. Previous findings indicate the insular cortex (IC) and the nucleus accumbens (NAc) play important roles in a range of social behaviors, and human neuroimaging implicates both IC and NAc in autism and other psychiatric disorders characterized by aberrant social cognition. To test whether IC projections to the NAc are involved in social decision making, circuit-specific chemogenetic manipulations demonstrated that the IC → NAc pathway mediates social approach toward distressed juvenile, but not adult, conspecifics. This finding is the first to implicate this circuit in rodent socioemotional behaviors and may be a neuroanatomical substrate for integration of emotion with social reward.

Less Power or Powerless? Egocentric Empathy Gaps and the Irony of Having Little vs. No Power in Social Decision Making

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Handgraaf ◽  
Eric van Dijk ◽  
Riël C. Vermunt ◽  
Henk Wilke ◽  
Carsten K. W. De Dreu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Social Decision Making

scholarly journals Social Value Orientation Modulates Fairness Processing During Social Decision-Making: Evidence From Behavior and Brain Potentials

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinmu Hu ◽  
Xiaoqin Mai
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Value Orientation ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Social Value Orientation ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Frontal Negativity ◽  
Social Decision Making

Abstract Social value orientation (SVO) characterizes stable individual differences by an inherent sense of fairness in outcome allocations. Using the event-related potential (ERP), this study investigated differences in fairness decision-making behavior and neural bases between individuals with prosocial and proself orientations using the Ultimatum Game (UG). Behavioral results indicated that prosocials were more prone to rejecting unfair offers with stronger negative emotional reactions compared with proselfs. ERP results revealed that prosocials showed a larger P2 when receiving fair offers than unfair ones in a very early processing stage, whereas such effect was absent in proselfs. In later processing stages, although both groups were sensitive to fairness as reflected by an enhanced medial frontal negativity (MFN) for unfair offers and a larger P3 for fair offers, prosocials exhibited a stronger fairness effect on these ERP components relative to proselfs. Furthermore, the fairness effect on the MFN mediated the SVO effect on rejecting unfair offers. Findings regarding emotional experiences, behavioral patterns, and ERPs provide compelling evidence that SVO modulates fairness processing in social decision-making, whereas differences in neural responses to unfair vs. fair offers as evidenced by the MFN appear to play important roles in the SVO effect on behavioral responses to unfairness.

Information processing and age differences in social decision-making.

1986 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 500-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chia-chen Chao ◽  
George P. Knight ◽  
Alan F. Dubro
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
Social Decision Making

scholarly journals The role of the right temporo-parietal junction in social decision-making

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 3072-3085 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Bitsch ◽  
Philipp Berger ◽  
Arne Nagels ◽  
Irina Falkenberg ◽  
Benjamin Straube
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Decision ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Decision Making
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