Wistar rats and C57BL/6 mice differ in their motivation to seek social interaction versus food in the Social versus Food Preference Test

Reppucci, Christina J.; Brown, Leigha A.; Chambers, Ashley; Veenema, Alexa H.

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2020.113162

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Moreover, the fact that no food deprivation was required, nor aggressive behaviors were observed, can be considered as an added value of our task. Aggressive behaviors induce robust stress reactions in rodents 20 , and food deprivation, although widely used in neuroscience to increase motivational salience during behavioral testing, modifies internal state 21 and social behavior 22 . Minimizing the possible long term effects of these manipulations on the internal state of tested animals is particularly important for studies regarding the impact of social hierarchy on other behavioral, physiological and brain functions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These results thus underscore the necessity of including multidimensional analysis of behavior and the importance of taking into account qualitative measurements when describing social interactions. Furthermore, although it might be surprising that the tube test is not a reliable measure of established hierarchy in rats, important differences in social behavior between mice and rats are starting to be reported 22 , 23 . Rats are more socially tolerant, and less hierarchical compared to mice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

Costa

Moita

Márquez

2021

Sci Rep

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Social hierarchy is a potent modulator of behavior, that is typically established through overt agonistic interactions between individuals in the group. Once established, social ranks are maintained through subtler interactions allowing the redirection of energy away from agonistic interactions towards other needs. The available tasks for assessing social rank in rats allow the study of the mechanisms by which social hierarches are formed in early phases but fail to assess the maintenance of established hierarchies between stable pairs of animals, which might rely on distinct neurobiological mechanisms. Here we present and validate a novel trial-based dominancy assay, the modified Food Competition test, where established social hierarchies can be identified in the home cage of non-food deprived pairs of male rats. In this task, we introduce a small conflict in the home cage, where access to a new feeder containing palatable pellets can only be gained by one animal at a time. We found that this subtle conflict triggered asymmetric social interactions and resulted in higher consumption of food by one of the animals in the pair, which reliably predicted hierarchy in other tests. Our findings reveal stable dominance status in pair-housed rats and provide a novel tool for the evaluation of established social hierarchies, the modified Food Competition test, that is robust and easy to implement.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

Costa

Moita

Márquez

2021

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…While other studies have assessed social reward in rodents, few have considered the role of stimulus familiarity, likely because laboratory rodents do not exhibit familiarity preferences under normal conditions (reviewed in Beery and Shambaugh, 2021). In social choice tests, mice and young rats often prefer social novelty (Moy et al, 2004; Smith et al, 2015), and relative preference for a social stimulus versus a food stimulus is greater when novel rats are presented (Reppucci et al, 2020). Indeed, in operant trials in which rats had simultaneous access to familiar and unfamiliar same-sex conspecifics, rats expended more effort to access unfamiliar conspecifics (Hackenberg et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social selectivity and social motivation in voles

Beery

Lopez

Blandino

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Selective relationships are fundamental to humans and many other animals, but relationships between mates, family members, or peers may be mediated differently. We examined connections between social reward and social selectivity, aggression, and oxytocin receptor signaling pathways in rodents that naturally form enduring, selective relationships with mates and peers (prairie voles) or peers (meadow voles). Female prairie and meadow voles worked harder to access familiar vs. unfamiliar individuals, regardless of sex, and huddled extensively with familiar subjects. Male prairie voles also displayed strongly selective huddling preferences for familiar animals, but worked hardest to repeatedly access females vs. males, with no difference in effort by familiarity. This demonstrates a fundamental disconnect between motivation and social selectivity in males, and reveals a striking sex difference in pathways underlying social monogamy. Meadow voles exhibited social preferences but low social motivation, consistent with tolerance rather than reward supporting social groups in this species. Natural variation in oxytocin receptor genotype was associated with oxytocin receptor density, and both genotype and receptor binding predicted individual variation in prosocial and aggressive behaviors. These results provide a basis for understanding species, sex, and individual differences in the mechanisms underlying the role of social reward in social preference.

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“…Moreover, the fact that no food deprivation was required, nor aggressive behaviors were observed, can be considered as an added value of our task. Aggressive behaviors induce robust stress reactions in the animals (Márquez et al , 2013), and food deprivation, although widely used in neuroscience to increase motivational salience during behavioral testing, modifies internal state (Kennedy and Shapiro, 2009) and social behavior (Chen and Hong, 2018; Reppucci et al , 2020). Minimizing the possible long term effects of these manipulations on the internal state of the animals was an important factor that we seriously considered while designing the present behavioral task, as they could strongly affect later social interactions while assessing the modulatory power of social hierarchy on other behavioral paradigms or brain function.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These results thus underscore the necessity of including multidimensional analysis of behavior and the importance of taking into account qualitative measurements when describing social interactions. Furthermore, although it might be surprising that the tube test is not a reliable measure of stablished hierarchy in rats, important differences in social behavior between mice and rats are starting to be reported 22,23 . Rats are more socially tolerant, and less hierarchical compared to mice.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

Costa

Moita

Márquez

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social hierarchy is a potent modulator of behavior in many species, including humans, that is typically established through overt agonistic interactions between individuals in the group. Once established, social ranks are maintained through subtler interactions allowing the redirection of energy away from agonistic interactions towards other needs. Most of the available tasks for assessing social rank in rodents allow the study of the mechanisms by which social hierarches are formed but fail to assess the maintenance of established hierarchies between stable pairs of animals, which might rely on distinct neurobiological mechanisms. Here we present and validate a novel trial-based dominancy assay, the modified Food Competition test, where established social hierarchies can be identified in the home cage of non-food deprived pairs of male rats. In this task, we introduce a small conflict in the home cage, where access to a new feeder containing palatable pellets can only be gained by one animal at a time. We found that this subtle conflict triggered asymmetric social interactions and resulted in higher consumption of food by one of the animals in the pair. To assess the reliability of the observed asymmetries as reflecting dominance relationships we investigated the behavior of same rat dyads in multiple social tasks adapted from social hierarchy studies. We found a positive correlation in dominance indices across most tests used. Our findings reveal stable dominance status in pair housed rats and provide a novel tool for the evaluation of established social hierarchies, the modified Food Competition test, that is robust and easy to implement, thus expanding the set of tasks available to study dominance in the lab.

show abstract

Wistar rats and C57BL/6 mice differ in their motivation to seek social interaction versus food in the Social versus Food Preference Test

Cited by 18 publications

References 53 publications

Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

Social selectivity and social motivation in voles

Novel Competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

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