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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Frank Beach Award Winner: Neuroendocrinology Of Group Living, Annaliese K. Beery
Frank Beach Award Winner: Neuroendocrinology Of Group Living, Annaliese K. Beery
Neuroscience: Faculty Publications
Why do members of some species live in groups while others are solitary? Group living (sociality) has often been studied from an evolutionary perspective, but less is known about the neurobiology of affiliation outside the realms of mating and parenting. Colonial species offer a valuable opportunity to study nonsexual affiliative behavior between adult peers. Meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) display environmentally induced variation in social behavior, maintaining exclusive territories in summer months, but living in social groups in winter. Research on peer relationships in female meadow voles demonstrates that these selective preferences are mediated differently than mate relationships in …
Septal Oxytocin Administration Impairs Peer Affiliation Via V1a Receptors In Female Meadow Voles, Allison M.J. Anacker, Jennifer D. Christensen, Elyssa M. Laflamme, Diana M. Grunberg, Annaliese K. Beery
Septal Oxytocin Administration Impairs Peer Affiliation Via V1a Receptors In Female Meadow Voles, Allison M.J. Anacker, Jennifer D. Christensen, Elyssa M. Laflamme, Diana M. Grunberg, Annaliese K. Beery
Neuroscience: Faculty Publications
The peptide hormone oxytocin (OT) plays an important role in social behaviors, including social bond formation. In different contexts, however, OT is also associated with aggression, social selectivity, and reduced affiliation. Female meadow voles form social preferences for familiar same-sex peers under short, winter-like day lengths in the laboratory, and provide a means of studying affiliation outside the context of reproductive pair bonds. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that the actions of OT in the lateral septum (LS) may decrease affiliative behavior, including greater density of OT receptors in the LS of meadow voles that huddle less. We infused OT …
Natural Variation In Maternal Care And Cross-Tissue Patterns Of Oxytocin Receptor Gene Methylation In Rats, Annaliese K. Beery, Lisa M. Mcewen, Julia L. Macisaac, Darlene D. Francis, Michael S. Kobor
Natural Variation In Maternal Care And Cross-Tissue Patterns Of Oxytocin Receptor Gene Methylation In Rats, Annaliese K. Beery, Lisa M. Mcewen, Julia L. Macisaac, Darlene D. Francis, Michael S. Kobor
Neuroscience: Faculty Publications
Since the first report of maternal care effects on DNA methylation in rats, epigenetic modifications of the genome in response to life experience have become the subject of intense focus across many disciplines. Oxytocin receptor expression varies in response to early experience, and both oxytocin signaling and methylation status of the oxytocin receptor gene (Oxtr) in blood have been related to disordered social behavior. It is unknown whether Oxtr methylation varies in response to early life experience, and whether currently employed peripheral measures of Oxtr methylation reflect variation in the brain. We examined the effects of early life rearing experience …