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Manipulating grooming by decreasing ectoparasite load causes unpredicted changes in antagonism.

ABSTRACT: It is thought that allogrooming is practised strategically in order to establish, maintain and reinforce social bonds between group members, exchanging one altruistic behaviour for a different form of reciprocated benefit at a later date. Correlational evidence supports this, but evidence of causality is lacking. We reduced parasite loads in eight meerkat Suricata suricatta groups, generating a substantial decrease in grooming. Contrary to the predictions, overall antagonism did not increase. However, within group networks, grooming increased towards individuals who increased their antagonism. This was restricted to antagonism focused on social position, rather than access to physical resources. The treatment also increased an alternative placatory behaviour: unprompted submissions. Following treatment, individuals performed higher rates of guarding and marking behaviours, suggesting that they were stressed. A reduction in opportunity to mediate stress through grooming may explain local rises in antagonism and corresponding increases in placatory behaviours. We suggest that meerkats use allogrooming (and submissions) as a facultative response to antagonism, rather than a pre-emptive strategy to avert it by establishing a network of associations, as has been suggested for primates.

SUBMITTER: Madden JR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2660965 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:IntroductionFemale sexual interest and arousal disorder is personally distressing for women. To better understand the mechanism of the candidate therapeutic, flibanserin, we determined its effects on an index of brain glucose metabolism.AimWe hypothesized that chronic treatment with flibanserin would alter metabolism in brain regions associated with serotonergic function and female sexual behavior.MethodsIn a crossover design, eight adult female common marmosets (Calithrix jacchus) received daily flibanserin or vehicle. After 7-12 weeks of treatment, the glucose metabolism radiotracer [(18) F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) was administered to each female immediately prior to 30 minutes of interaction with her male pairmate, after which females were anesthetized and imaged by positron emission tomography. Whole-brain normalized images were analyzed with anatomically defined regions of interest. Whole-brain voxelwise mapping was used to explore treatment effects. Correlations were examined between alterations in metabolism and pairmate social grooming.Main outcome measuresChanges in metabolism associated with flibanserin were determined for dorsal raphe, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), medial preoptic area of hypothalamus (mPOA), ventromedial nucleus of hypothalamus, and field cornu ammonis 1 (CA1) of the hippocampus.ResultsIn response to chronic flibanserin, metabolism in mPOA declined, and this reduction correlated with increases in pairmate grooming. A cluster of voxels in frontal cortico-limbic regions exhibited reduced metabolism in response to flibanserin and overlapped with a voxel cluster in which reductions in metabolism correlated with increases in pairmate grooming. Finally, reductions in mPOA metabolism correlated with increases in metabolism in a cluster of voxels in somatosensory cortex.ConclusionsTaken together, these results suggest that flibanserin-induced reductions in female mPOA neural activity increase intimate affiliative behavior with male pairmates.

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Manipulating grooming by decreasing ectoparasite load causes unpredicted changes in antagonism.

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