Neuron "Love and Hate"-the neural matrix of women's social behavior with changes in their physiological state

Editor | xi For the same male social object, the same female mouse individual may show completely opposite social behaviors-mating or aggression
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This social decision depends on the female's current breastfeeding physiological state: for non-lactating females, male mice are potential partners
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Therefore, in this physiological state, female individuals will show a high degree of sexual acceptance
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However, when the female becomes a mother and enters the lactation period, the same male mouse loses its sexual attraction and becomes a threat to the survival of the offspring
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In the state of breastfeeding, female individuals will reject the courtship behavior of male mice and even attack and bite
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This change in social behavior is reversible
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When a lactating female is weaned, her aggressiveness disappears and she shows a high degree of sexual acceptance
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How does the physiological state of lactation make the same female completely reverse her social decision-making? The neural mechanism of this phenomenon is currently unclear
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On January 3, 2022, Mengyu Liu, Dong-Wook Kim, and David J.
Anderson of the California Institute of Technology published an article Make war not love: The neural substrate underlying a state-dependent switch in female social behavior on Neuron, which applied Single-cell sequencing technology (Act-seq), which is dependent on neuronal activity, found two different neuronal subtypes (alpha And beta)
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These two kinds of neurons are activated in non-lactating females showing high sexual acceptance and lactating females showing high aggressiveness
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In order to explore the regulatory effects of these two neuronal subtypes on sexual behavior and aggressive behavior, the researchers specifically expressed light-sensitive proteins on the surface of alpha and beta neurons in female mice, inhibiting or activating specific subtypes during social activities.
And observe the effect on behavior
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The results show that alpha and beta neurons have specific regulatory effects on sexual acceptance and aggression, respectively
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Inhibiting alpha neurons will cause highly sexually accepted females to reject male courtship attempts, while inhibiting beta neurons will cause females who are attacking and biting to immediately stop their aggressive behavior
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Correspondingly, activating alpha neurons will increase female sexual acceptance, and even make non-estrous females accept the male's request for mating and successfully mate
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Activating beta neurons causes female mice to immediately attack social objects, and can even trigger fierce fighting in non-aggressive non-lactating females
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What’s more interesting is that these two kinds of neurons have a positive regulatory effect on their corresponding social behaviors, but they also have a deterrent effect on the other social behaviors.

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Activating the subtype alpha of mating-related neurons can make the mother who is aggressively attacking immediately stop fighting
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And activating the offensive-related neuron subtype beta can make female mice enjoying copulation immediately show aversion to their partners and turn around to attack and bite
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The researchers further explored how the activities of these two types of neurons change according to the state of breastfeeding, allowing females to flexibly adjust social decision-making
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The authors used calcium ion imaging to track and record the responses of alpha and beta neurons of the same female to the same male odor signal in virgin, lactation and post-weaning physiological states, respectively
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The results showed that the response of the attack-related beta neurons to the male signal showed a lactation-dependent change: low response in virgin and post-weaning, but high-intensity response during lactation
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Alpha neurons related to mating did not show lactation-dependent response changes
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In short, the study revealed that two different neuron subtypes in the same brain area specifically regulate female "love and hatred"-sexual acceptance and aggression
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These two kinds of neurons flexibly change the relative strength of the male signal response according to the individual's physiological state, so that the female individual can make appropriate behavioral decisions
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 Original link: https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
neuron.
2021.
12.
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