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Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression
The neurotransmitter serotonin plays a key role in the control of aggressive behaviour. While so far most studies have investigated variation in serotonin levels, a recently created tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (Tph2) knockout mouse model allows studying effects of complete brain serotonin deficiency. F...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6361930/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30718564 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37613-4 |
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author | Kästner, Niklas Richter, S. Helene Urbanik, Sarah Kunert, Joachim Waider, Jonas Lesch, Klaus-Peter Kaiser, Sylvia Sachser, Norbert |
author_facet | Kästner, Niklas Richter, S. Helene Urbanik, Sarah Kunert, Joachim Waider, Jonas Lesch, Klaus-Peter Kaiser, Sylvia Sachser, Norbert |
author_sort | Kästner, Niklas |
collection | PubMed |
description | The neurotransmitter serotonin plays a key role in the control of aggressive behaviour. While so far most studies have investigated variation in serotonin levels, a recently created tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (Tph2) knockout mouse model allows studying effects of complete brain serotonin deficiency. First studies revealed increased aggressiveness in homozygous Tph2 knockout mice in the context of a resident-intruder paradigm. Focussing on females, this study aimed to elucidate effects of serotonin deficiency on aggressive and non-aggressive social behaviours not in a test situation but a natural setting. For this purpose, female Tph2 wildtype (n = 40) and homozygous knockout mice (n = 40) were housed with a same-sex conspecific of either the same or the other genotype in large terraria. The main findings were: knockout females displayed untypically high levels of aggressive behaviour even after several days of co-housing. Notably, in response to aggressive knockout partners, they showed increased levels of defensive behaviours. While most studies on aggression in rodents have focussed on males, this study suggests a significant involvement of serotonin also in the control of female aggression. Future research will show, whether the observed behavioural effects are directly caused by the lack of serotonin or by potential compensatory mechanisms. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6361930 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-63619302019-02-06 Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression Kästner, Niklas Richter, S. Helene Urbanik, Sarah Kunert, Joachim Waider, Jonas Lesch, Klaus-Peter Kaiser, Sylvia Sachser, Norbert Sci Rep Article The neurotransmitter serotonin plays a key role in the control of aggressive behaviour. While so far most studies have investigated variation in serotonin levels, a recently created tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (Tph2) knockout mouse model allows studying effects of complete brain serotonin deficiency. First studies revealed increased aggressiveness in homozygous Tph2 knockout mice in the context of a resident-intruder paradigm. Focussing on females, this study aimed to elucidate effects of serotonin deficiency on aggressive and non-aggressive social behaviours not in a test situation but a natural setting. For this purpose, female Tph2 wildtype (n = 40) and homozygous knockout mice (n = 40) were housed with a same-sex conspecific of either the same or the other genotype in large terraria. The main findings were: knockout females displayed untypically high levels of aggressive behaviour even after several days of co-housing. Notably, in response to aggressive knockout partners, they showed increased levels of defensive behaviours. While most studies on aggression in rodents have focussed on males, this study suggests a significant involvement of serotonin also in the control of female aggression. Future research will show, whether the observed behavioural effects are directly caused by the lack of serotonin or by potential compensatory mechanisms. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6361930/ /pubmed/30718564 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37613-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Kästner, Niklas Richter, S. Helene Urbanik, Sarah Kunert, Joachim Waider, Jonas Lesch, Klaus-Peter Kaiser, Sylvia Sachser, Norbert Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression |
title | Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression |
title_full | Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression |
title_fullStr | Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression |
title_full_unstemmed | Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression |
title_short | Brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression |
title_sort | brain serotonin deficiency affects female aggression |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6361930/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30718564 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37613-4 |
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