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Early-life sleep disruption increases parvalbumin in primary somatosensory cortex and impairs social bonding in prairie voles.

ABSTRACT: Across mammals, juveniles sleep more than adults, with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep at a lifetime maximum early in life. One function of REM sleep may be to facilitate brain development of complex behaviors. Here, we applied 1 week of early-life sleep disruption (ELSD) in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), a highly social rodent species that forms lifelong pair bonds. Electroencephalographic recordings from juvenile voles during ELSD revealed decreased REM sleep and reduced ? power compared to baseline. ELSD impaired pair bond formation and altered object preference in adulthood. Furthermore, ELSD increased GABAergic parvalbumin immunoreactivity in the primary somatosensory cortex in adulthood, a brain region relevant to both affected behaviors. We propose that, early in life, sleep is crucial for tuning inhibitory neural circuits and the development of species-typical affiliative social behavior.

SUBMITTER: Jones CE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6353622 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Early-life sleep disruption increases parvalbumin in primary somatosensory cortex and impairs social bonding in prairie voles.

Jones Carolyn E CE Opel Ryan A RA Kaiser Mara E ME Chau Alex Q AQ Quintana Jazmine R JR Nipper Michelle A MA Finn Deborah A DA Hammock Elizabeth A D EAD Lim Miranda M MM

Science advances 20190130 1

Across mammals, juveniles sleep more than adults, with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep at a lifetime maximum early in life. One function of REM sleep may be to facilitate brain development of complex behaviors. Here, we applied 1 week of early-life sleep disruption (ELSD) in prairie voles (<i>Microtus ochrogaster</i>), a highly social rodent species that forms lifelong pair bonds. Electroencephalographic recordings from juvenile voles during ELSD revealed decreased REM sleep and reduced γ power c ...[more]

PMID: 30729165

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Project description:There is much interest in targeting the activity in the oxytocin system to regulate social bonding. However, studies with exogenous administration of oxytocin face the caveats of its low stability, poor brain permeability and insufficient receptor specificity. The use of a small-molecule oxytocin receptor-specific agonist could overcome these caveats. Prior to testing the potential effects of a brain-penetrant oxytocin receptor agonist in clinical settings, it is important to assess how such an agonist would affect social bonds in animal models. The facultatively monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), capable of forming long-term social attachments between adult individuals, are an ideal rodent model for such testing. Therefore, in a series of experiments we investigated the effects of the recently developed oxytocin receptor-specific agonist LIT-001 on the acquisition and expression of partner preference, a well-established model of pair bonding, in prairie voles. LIT-001 (10 mg/kg, intraperitoneal), as expected, facilitated the acquisition of partner preference when administered prior to a 4hr cohabitation. In contrast, while animals injected with vehicle after the 4hr cohabitation exhibited significant partner preference, animals that were injected with LIT-001 did not show such partner preference. This result suggests that OXTR activation during expression of pair bonding can inhibit partner preference. The difference in effects of LIT-001 on acquisition versus expression was not due to basal differences in partner preference between the experiments, as LIT-001 had no significant effects on expression of partner preference if administered following a shorter (2hr-long) cohabitation. Instead, this difference agrees with the hypothesis that the activation of oxytocin receptors acts as a signal of presence of a social partner. Our results indicate that the effects of pharmacological activation of oxytocin receptors crucially depend on the phase of social attachments.

Dataset Information

Early-life sleep disruption increases parvalbumin in primary somatosensory cortex and impairs social bonding in prairie voles.

Publications

Early-life sleep disruption increases parvalbumin in primary somatosensory cortex and impairs social bonding in prairie voles.

Similar Datasets

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