Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Guoynes, Caleigh D

Titel

The Role of Oxytocin and Vasopressin on Vocal Communication and Forming, Maintaining, and Breaking Social Bonds in the California Mouse (Peromyscus californicus)

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In social species, coordination of behavior is crucial for accomplishing complex tasks such as resource acquisition, territorial defense, and parental care. Decades of research has shown that the ability to acquire better food and territory and to provide higher quality parental care improves measures of ultimate fitness. More recently, research has examined the proximate mechanisms that facilitate the ability to perform coordinated social behavior. Having strong social bonds, such as parent-offspring bonds and monogamous pair bonds can facilitate increased coordinated social behavior. This dissertation focuses on two key aspects that help facilitate social bonds: auditory communication and neuropeptides. Using the territorial, monogamous, and biparental California mouse (Peromyscus californicus) as a model species this dissertation examines the role of auditory communication, oxytocin, and vasopressin on the formation, maintenance, and breakdown of social bonds. Compared to other model species, California mice have a better understood vocal repertoire which allows for pairing vocal communication with monogamous and biparental social bond behavior. The neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin have been shown to influence pair bonding, maternal and paternal care, and social recognition. However, vasopressin may also be involved in promoting anxiety and aggression. The oxytocin and vasopressin systems may play a significant role in rewiring the social brain by reinforcing social interactions as positive or negative. While most studies on oxytocin and vasopressin examine their role in affiliative social preferences, this dissertation examines how acute pulses of oxytocin and vasopressin influence different aspects of social bonds and family-unit coordination. During pre-bonding aggression tests, a medium dose of oxytocin reduces aggression in males. Low and medium doses of vasopressin do not change aggression in either females or males, but high doses of vasopressin reduce aggression levels, similar to the effect of a medium dose of oxytocin (Chapter 2). During the formation of mother-offspring bonds, oxytocin increases maternal vocalizations and increases the efficiency of maternal care. However, for fathers, oxytocin only increases the efficiency of paternal care and does not influence vocalizations (Chapter 3). In order to maintain coordination among family units during a challenge, California mice use ultrasonic vocalizations to coordinate behavior and parental care strategy. Oxytocin tends to increase division of labor among parents, increasing the effort of mothers whereas vasopressin increases parent retrievals (Chapter 4). Parent-offspring bonds in male but not female juveniles may be maintained by acute pulses of OXT. Finally, there are pronounced differences in social receptivity levels of adolescent and adult California mice that are independent of acute oxytocin pulses. (Chapter 5). Collectively, these studies show that OXT may facilitate faster formation of pair bonds and parent-offspring bonds, alter division of labor during parental care tasks, and prevent the breakdown of male juvenile-parent bonds. Unlike OXT, IN AVP administration may inhibit female pair bond formation and does not seem to play an important role in either social bond maintenance or breakdown.