Research
Postdoctoral research: Early life social complexity shapes adult neural processing in the communal spiny mouse Acomys cahirinus
Early life social rearing has profound consequences on offspring behavior and resilience. Yet most studies examining early life development in rodents use species whose young are born immobile and do not produce complex social behavior until later in development. Furthermore, models of rearing under increased social complexity, rather than social deprivation, are needed to provide alternative insight into the development of social neural circuitry. To understand precocial offspring social development in a communal environment we manipulated early life social complexity in the spiny mouse Acomys cahirinus and assessed long-term consequences on offspring social behavior, exploration, and neural responses to novel social stimuli. Spiny mouse pups were raised in the presence or absence of a non-kin breeding group. Upon adulthood subjects underwent social interaction tests, an open field test, and a novel object test. Subjects were then exposed to a novel conspecific and novel group and neural responses were quantified via immunohistochemical staining in brain regions associated with social behavior.
Early life social experience did not influence behavior in the test battery, but it did influence social processing, such that lateral septal neural responses toward a novel conspecific and hypothalamic neural responses toward a novel mixed-sex group differed in animals raised in socially complex and socially simple environments. Thus, we conclude that communal species may exhibit robust behavioral resilience to the early life social environment. But the early life environment can affect how novel social information is processed in the brain during adulthood, with long-term consequences that are likely to shape their behavioral trajectory.
catching mosquitofish at Brackenridge Field Labs, Austin TX
Doctoral research: Cognition in a Social World: Assessing Cognitive Variation by Sex and Dominance Status in Gambusia affinis and Astatotilapia burtoni
During my doctoral research I assessed male
Astatotilapia burtoni, an African cichlid fish known for its dynamic social dominance hierarchies, in a set of cognitive tasks both before and after a community perturbation in which some individuals ascended in dominance status. I assayed steroid hormone (cortisol, testosterone) levels before and after the community experienced a social perturbation. I found that ascending males changed their physiology and novel object recognition preference during the perturbation, and they subsequently differed in social competence from non-ascenders. Additionally, using a principal component analysis I was able to identify specific cognitive and physiological attributes that appear to predispose certain individuals to ascend in social status once a perturbation occurs. These previously undiscovered relationships between social ascent and cognition further emphasize the broad influence of social dominance on animal decision-making.
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