Sensitive phases in the development of rodent social behavior

Sachser, Norbert; Zimmermann, Tobias D.; Hennessy, Michael B.; Kaiser, Sylvia

doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.07.014

Cited by 30 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Though less common, sensitive periods in later developmental stages are widespread. In mammals, experiences during adolescence typically influence adult social behavior to a greater degree than experiences during childhood ( Buwalda et al 2011 ; Mutwill et al 2020 ; Sachser et al 2020 ). For example, adolescent guinea pigs housed in large colonies respond to being transferred to a new colony by developing lower levels of stress and aggression as adults, more so than juvenile guinea pigs do ( Sachser et al 2018 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evolutionary model of sensitive periods when the reliability of cues varies across ontogeny

2021

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Sensitive periods are widespread in nature, but their evolution is not well understood. Recent mathematical modeling has illuminated the conditions favoring the evolution of sensitive periods early in ontogeny. However, sensitive periods also exist at later stages of ontogeny, such as adolescence. Here, we present a mathematical model that explores the conditions that favor sensitive periods at later developmental stages. In our model, organisms use environmental cues to incrementally construct a phenotype that matches their environment. Unlike in previous models, the reliability of cues varies across ontogeny. We use stochastic dynamic programming to compute optimal policies for a range of evolutionary ecologies and then simulate developmental trajectories to obtain mature phenotypes. We measure changes in plasticity across ontogeny using study paradigms inspired by empirical research: adoption and cross-fostering. Our results show that sensitive periods only evolve later in ontogeny if the reliability of cues increases across ontogeny. The onset, duration, and offset of sensitive periods—and the magnitude of plasticity—depend on the specific parameter settings. If the reliability of cues decreases across ontogeny, sensitive periods are favored only early in ontogeny. These results are robust across different paradigms suggesting that empirical findings might be comparable despite different experimental designs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evolutionary model of sensitive periods when the reliability of cues varies across ontogeny

2021

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“…This notion of "predictive adaptive responses" is thought to describe a common evolutionary process [76,[106][107][108]. In a stressful, competitive environment, behavioral traits such as reduced sociality, increased reactivity and aggression, and a re-focusing of cognition on skills relevant to basic survival at the expense of "higher level" skills might all be adaptive and, indeed, all have been documented to develop disproportionally following early stressful conditions [108][109][110]. While specific behavioral outcomes vary by species and situation, there is no reason to expect dogs to be exempt from these influences.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological Stress, Its Reduction, and Long-Term Consequences: What Studies with Laboratory Animals Might Teach Us about Life in the Dog Shelter

Hennessy

Willen²,

Schiml

2020

Animals

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There is a long history of laboratory studies of the physiological and behavioral effects of stress, its reduction, and the later psychological and behavioral consequences of unmitigated stress responses. Many of the stressors employed in these studies approximate the experience of dogs confined in an animal shelter. We review how the laboratory literature has guided our own work in describing the reactions of dogs to shelter housing and in helping formulate means of reducing their stress responses. Consistent with the social buffering literature in other species, human interaction has emerged as a key ingredient in moderating glucocorticoid stress responses of shelter dogs. We discuss variables that appear critical for effective use of human interaction procedures in the shelter as well as potential neural mechanisms underlying the glucocorticoid-reducing effect. We also describe recent studies in which enrichment centered on human interaction has been found to reduce aggressive responses in a temperament test used to determine suitability for adoption. Finally, we suggest that a critical aspect of the laboratory stress literature that has been underappreciated in studying shelter dogs is evidence for long-term behavioral consequences—often mediated by glucocorticoids—that may not become apparent until well after initial stress exposure.

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“…3) allows insights into individual differences in niche use and short-term phenotypic adjustments. A now-and-in-thefuture perspective looks at individual niches with a focus on sensitive phases or developmental switch-points and their lifelong consequences (Sachser et al 2020). We call this now-and-in-the-future perspective, the prospective individualized niche (Fig.…”

Section: The Question Of Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Hutchinsons ecological niche for individuals

Takola¹,

Schielzeth²

2021

Preprint

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We here develop a concept of an individualized niche in analogy to Hutchison’s concept of the ecological niche of a population. We consider the individualized (ecological) niche as the range of environmental conditions under which a particular individual has a fitness expectation of ≥1. We address four specific challenges that occur when scaling the niche down from populations to individuals: (1) We discuss the consequences of uniqueness of individuals in a population and the corresponding lack of statistical replication. (2) We discuss the dynamic nature of individualized niches and how they can be studied either as time-slice niches, as prospective niches or as trajectory-based niches. (3) We discuss the dimensionality of the individualized niche, that is greater than the population niche due to the additional dimensions of intra-specific niche space. (4) We discuss how the boundaries of individualized niche space can to be defined by expected fitness and how expected fitness can be inferred by marginalizing fitness functions across phenotypes or environments. We frame our discussion in the context of recent interest in the causes and consequences of individual differences in animal behavior.

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Sensitive phases in the development of rodent social behavior

Cited by 30 publications

References 58 publications

An evolutionary model of sensitive periods when the reliability of cues varies across ontogeny

An evolutionary model of sensitive periods when the reliability of cues varies across ontogeny

Psychological Stress, Its Reduction, and Long-Term Consequences: What Studies with Laboratory Animals Might Teach Us about Life in the Dog Shelter

Hutchinsons ecological niche for individuals

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