title: Paternal deprivation affects social behaviors and neurochemical systems in the offspring of socially monogamous prairie voles.
abstract: Early life experiences, particularly the experience with parents, are crucial to phenotypic outcomes in both humans and animals. Although the effects of maternal deprivation on offspring well-being have been studied, paternal deprivation (PD) has received little attention despite documented associations between father absence and children health problems in humans. In the present study, we utilized the socially monogamous prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster), which displays male-female pair bonding and bi-parental care, to examine the effects of PD on adult behaviors and neurochemical expression in the hippocampus. Male and female subjects were randomly assigned into one of two experimental groups that grew up with both the mother and father (MF) or with the mother-only (MO, to generate PD experience). Our data show that MO subjects received less parental licking/grooming and carrying and were left alone in the nest more frequently than MF subjects. At adulthood (∼75days of age), MO subjects displayed increased social affiliation (SOA) toward a conspecific compared to MF subjects, but the two groups did not differ in social recognition (SOR) and anxiety-like behavior. Interestingly, MO subjects showed consistent increases in both gene and protein expression of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) as well as the levels of total histone 3 and histone 3 acetylation in the hippocampus compared to MF subjects. Further, PD experience increased glucocorticoid receptor beta (GRβ) protein expression in the hippocampus of females as well as increased corticotrophin receptor 2 (CRHR2) protein expression in the hippocampus of males, but decreased CRHR2 mRNA in both sexes. Together, our data suggest that PD has a long-lasting, behavior-specific effect on SOA and alters hippocampal neurochemical systems in the vole brain. The functional role of such altered neurochemical systems in social behaviors and the potential involvement of epigenetic events should be further studied.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
authors.forename: Manal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tabbaa
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Program in Neuroscience, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA. Electronic address: zwang@psy.fsu.edu.
authors.forename: Zuoxin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000378:metabolism; D003411:Arvicolinae / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000523:psychology*; D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor / Q000378:metabolism; D005220:Fathers; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D010152:Pair Bond; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D011897:Random Allocation; D020813:Receptor, trkB / Q000378:metabolism; D018043:Receptors, Corticotropin / Q000378:metabolism; D018019:Receptors, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone / Q000378:metabolism; D011965:Receptors, Glucocorticoid / Q000378:metabolism; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D012919:Social Behavior
chemical_list: D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor; C101531:CRF receptor type 2; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D018043:Receptors, Corticotropin; D018019:Receptors, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone; D011965:Receptors, Glucocorticoid; C121943:glucocorticoid receptor beta; D020813:Receptor, trkB
keywords: BDNF; CRH; epigenetics; hippocampus; oxytocin; parental behavior