Brain transcriptomics of social challenge and maternal aggression in incubating female tree swallows
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PROVIDER: PRJNA1146930 | ENA |
REPOSITORIES: ENA
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Project description:Aggressive behavior is ubiquitous across many contexts, including defense of territories, mates, and offspring. For decades, researchers have detailed the effect of aggressive behavior on physiology, but our understanding of these mechanisms in females lags behind that of males, despite the fact that female aggression is widespread, particularly in the context of maternal defense (i.e., maternal aggression). Here, we measured effects of a social challenge on brain gene expression in free-living incubating females. We hypothesized that the social challenge would generate at least one of three transcriptomic effects: (1) sensitizing the brain to otherwise low levels of sex steroids, (2) changing other neuroendocrine signaling pathways associated with social behavior (e.g., dopamine), or (3) broad shifts related to metabolism or immune function. We tested these hypotheses in incubating female tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), exposing 10 females to a 30-minute simulated territorial intrusion, which elicited maternal aggression. After this challenge, we measured neural gene expression via RNA-seq and compared gene expression to 10 unchallenged controls. We saw no global treatment effect on gene expression. However, within the experimental group, more maternal aggression was correlated with upregulation of genes associated with immune activation and downregulation of genes associated with synaptic plasticity. Though more research is needed to understand the downstream effects of these transcriptional differences, our findings generate key questions about how the brain responds to social challenges across different contexts.
2025-01-23 | GSE274514 | GEO
Project description:A female's behavioral and physiological response to her environment can have lasting effects on the development of her offspring. This type of non-genetic inheritance (or maternal effect) occurs across taxa but is particularly well-studied in birds due to the relative ease of measuring maternal hormones in externally developing eggs. For example, females breeding in areas of high social competition allocate more of the hormone testosterone (T) to their egg yolks. These high-T offspring exhibit numerous phenotypic changes, including faster juvenile growth and enhanced aggression well into adulthood, which are potentially beneficial traits in high-competition areas. Thus, females may be able to communicate the current social environment to their offspring and prepare them for adverse conditions. Yet, the proximate mechanisms underlying how maternal hormones affect offspring are largely ignored, impairing our understanding of an ecologically important source of phenotypic plasticity. Here, we explored the effects of the maternal social environment on yolk T allocation and genome-wide patterns of neural gene expression in male and female tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) embryos. We observed a population of free-living tree swallows breeding at sites with variable breeding densities. We performed behavioral observations to record the rate of physical aggression at these sites, which was significantly higher at high density sites. We collected eggs at two developmental timepoints: the day laid to measure maternally derived T concentrations and embryonic day 11 (ED11) to measure gene expression patterns in whole brains using RNA-seq. We took a genome-wide approach to help clarify the potentially diverse mechanisms regulated by early T exposure across variable social environments. We additionally molecularly sexed the embryos to explore sex-specific effects.
2024-10-27 | GSE246544 | GEO
Project description:We studied behavioral, brain transcriptomic and epigenetic responses of honey bees to social challenge. Bees were exposed to two intruders at different intervals. The initial exposure caused two behavioral effects at the individual level: an increase in the intensity of aggression toward a second intruder at 30 and 60 minutes, and an increased probability of responding aggressively toward a second intruder that persisted for two hours. The shorter-lived response was associated with one pattern of gene expression in the mushroom bodies, highlighted by genes related to cytoskeleton remodeling. The longer-lived response was associated with a different pattern; highlighted by genes related to hormones, stress response and transcription factors. Histone profiling revealed few changes in chromatin accessibility in response to social challenge; most differentially expressed genes were “ready” to be activated. These results demonstrate how biological embedding of a social challenge involves changes in the neurogenomic state to influence future behavior.
2017-03-29 | GSE85877 | GEO
Project description:We studied behavioral, brain transcriptomic and epigenetic responses of honey bees to social challenge. Bees were exposed to two intruders at different intervals. The initial exposure caused two behavioral effects at the individual level: an increase in the intensity of aggression toward a second intruder at 30 and 60 minutes, and an increased probability of responding aggressively toward a second intruder that persisted for two hours. The shorter-lived response was associated with one pattern of gene expression in the mushroom bodies, highlighted by genes related to cytoskeleton remodeling. The longer-lived response was associated with a different pattern; highlighted by genes related to hormones, stress response and transcription factors. Histone profiling revealed few changes in chromatin accessibility in response to social challenge; most differentially expressed genes were “ready” to be activated. These results demonstrate how biological embedding of a social challenge involves changes in the neurogenomic state to influence future behavior.
2017-03-29 | GSE85876 | GEO
Project description:The aim of this experiment was to test whether the social setting changed neural transcriptomic responses to an endotoxin challenge in zebra finches
2023-03-06 | GSE203528 | GEO
Project description:Modulation of action choices according to the environmental context is crucial for animal survival and reproductive success1. Aggression, despite its general importance as a social behavior2, can become detrimental if uncontrolled3,4. However, the genetic and neural basis for aggression control through active suppression remains largely unknown. Here we found nvy, a Drosophila homolog of vertebrate myeloid translocation gene (MTG)5 involved in transcriptional regulation6-8, suppresses aggression through a specific subset of neurons. Mutation of the nvy gene resulted in hyper-aggressiveness, which was rescued by neuronal expression of human MTGs as well as Drosophila nvy. The mutant exhibited persistent aggression under various contexts in which wild-type flies switch their behavioral patterns. Knockdown of nvy in octopaminergic/tyraminergic (OA/TA) neurons increased aggression, phenocopying the nvy deletion. Cell-type specific transcriptomics on OA/TA neurons derived from the nvy mutants revealed aggression-controlling genes that are likely downstream of nvy. Moreover, we found that the nvy-expressing OA/TA neuronal subpopulations specifically suppress aggression. Our results presents a powerful genetic model to unravel not only the neuronal systems that modulate aggression in a social context-dependent manner, but also the conserved molecular mechanism underlying the tumorigenesis caused by the MTG mutations.
2022-06-22 | GSE148630 | GEO
Project description:High frequency of physical aggression is the central feature of severe conduct disorder and is associated with a wide range of social, mental and physical health problems. We have previously tested the hypothesis that differential DNA methylation signatures in peripheral T cells are associated with a chronic aggression trajectory in males. Despite the fact that sex differences appear to play a pivotal role in determining the development, magnitude and frequency of aggression, most of previous studies focused on males, so little is known about female chronic physical aggression. We therefore tested here whether or not there is a signature of physical aggression in female DNA methylation and, if there is, how it relates to the signature observed in males. Genome-wide promoter methylation profiles of T cell DNA from adult females on a Chronic Physical Aggression (CPA, n=5) trajectory during childhood and adolescence were compared to those on normative physical aggression trajectories (NPA, n=14). Two technical replicates were generated for each individual.
2013-12-11 | E-GEOD-53192 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Mothers contribute cytoplasmic components to their progeny in a process called maternal provisioning. Provisioning is influenced by the parental environment, but the molecular pathways that transmit environmental cues between generations are not well understood. Here we show that in C. elegans, social cues modulate maternal provisioning to regulate gene silencing in offspring. Intergenerational signal transmission depends on a pheromone-sensing neuron and neuronal FMRFamide (Phe-Met-Arg-Phe)-like peptides. Parental FMRFamide-like peptide signaling dampens oxidative stress resistance and promotes the deposition of mRNAs for translational components in progeny, which in turn reduces gene silencing. This study identifies a new pathway for intergenerational communication that links neuronal responses to maternal provisioning. We suggest that loss of social cues in the parental environment represents an adverse environment that stimulates stress responses across generations.
2021-05-19 | GSE174646 | GEO
Project description:Social dominance encompasses winning dyadic contests and gaining priority access to resources and reproduction. Disposition to dominance is influenced by environmental factors, particularly during early postnatal life and adolescence. A disinhibitory mPFC microcircuit has been implicated in the expression of dominance in the “tube test” paradigm of social competition in mice, but the neuronal and transcriptional plasticity associated with the environment induced increase in social dominance is not known. We previously reported that male pups raised by physically active (as opposed to sedentary) dams exhibit dominance and increased reproductive fitness, and here we show that social isolation from weaning also increases dominance. By using these preweaning and postweaning environmental models, we tested if dominance is associated with transcriptional plasticity and a specific transcriptional profile in one or more cell types in the mPFC. Given that the mPFC is composed of several cell types, we used single cell transcriptomics to characterize the influence of the preweaning maternal and postweaning social environment on cell-type specific gene expression. The preweaning maternal effect, but not postweaning social isolation, caused gene expression changes in a wide range of cell types including pyramidal neurons, various interneurons, and astrocytes. However, both the maternal effect and social isolation induced the coordinated downregulation of synaptic channel, receptor, and adhesion genes in parvalbumin positive (PV) interneurons. This suggests an impaired PV interneuron-mediated inhibition of pyramidal cells in animals predisposed to dominance, a notion consistent with dominant behavior being driven by the disinhibition of mPFC pyramidal neurons.
2024-01-31 | GSE234726 | GEO
Project description:Neural transcriptomic responses to endotoxin challenge across social treatments
| PRJNA841225 | ENA