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Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression
Social hierarchies emerge when animals compete for access to resources such as food, mates or physical space. Wild and laboratory male mice have been shown to develop linear hierarchies, however, less is known regarding whether female mice have sufficient intrasexual competition to establish signifi...
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/PMC6513839/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31086272 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-43747-w |
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author | Williamson, Cait M. Lee, Won DeCasien, Alexandra R. Lanham, Alesi Romeo, Russell D. Curley, James P. |
author_facet | Williamson, Cait M. Lee, Won DeCasien, Alexandra R. Lanham, Alesi Romeo, Russell D. Curley, James P. |
author_sort | Williamson, Cait M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Social hierarchies emerge when animals compete for access to resources such as food, mates or physical space. Wild and laboratory male mice have been shown to develop linear hierarchies, however, less is known regarding whether female mice have sufficient intrasexual competition to establish significant social dominance relationships. In this study, we examined whether groups of outbred CD-1 virgin female mice housed in a large vivaria formed social hierarchies. We show that females use fighting, chasing and mounting behaviors to rapidly establish highly directionally consistent social relationships. Notably, these female hierarchies are less linear, steep and despotic compared to male hierarchies. Female estrus state was not found to have a significant effect on aggressive behavior, though dominant females had elongated estrus cycles (due to increased time in estrus) compared to subordinate females. Plasma estradiol levels were equivalent between dominant and subordinate females. Subordinate females had significantly higher levels of basal corticosterone compared to dominant females. Analyses of gene expression in the ventromedial hypothalamus indicated that subordinate females have elevated ERα, ERβ and OTR mRNA compared to dominant females. This study provides a methodological framework for the study of the neuroendocrine basis of female social aggression and dominance in laboratory mice. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6513839 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65138392019-05-24 Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression Williamson, Cait M. Lee, Won DeCasien, Alexandra R. Lanham, Alesi Romeo, Russell D. Curley, James P. Sci Rep Article Social hierarchies emerge when animals compete for access to resources such as food, mates or physical space. Wild and laboratory male mice have been shown to develop linear hierarchies, however, less is known regarding whether female mice have sufficient intrasexual competition to establish significant social dominance relationships. In this study, we examined whether groups of outbred CD-1 virgin female mice housed in a large vivaria formed social hierarchies. We show that females use fighting, chasing and mounting behaviors to rapidly establish highly directionally consistent social relationships. Notably, these female hierarchies are less linear, steep and despotic compared to male hierarchies. Female estrus state was not found to have a significant effect on aggressive behavior, though dominant females had elongated estrus cycles (due to increased time in estrus) compared to subordinate females. Plasma estradiol levels were equivalent between dominant and subordinate females. Subordinate females had significantly higher levels of basal corticosterone compared to dominant females. Analyses of gene expression in the ventromedial hypothalamus indicated that subordinate females have elevated ERα, ERβ and OTR mRNA compared to dominant females. This study provides a methodological framework for the study of the neuroendocrine basis of female social aggression and dominance in laboratory mice. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC6513839/ /pubmed/31086272 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-43747-w 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 Williamson, Cait M. Lee, Won DeCasien, Alexandra R. Lanham, Alesi Romeo, Russell D. Curley, James P. Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression |
title | Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression |
title_full | Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression |
title_fullStr | Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression |
title_full_unstemmed | Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression |
title_short | Social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression |
title_sort | social hierarchy position in female mice is associated with plasma corticosterone levels and hypothalamic gene expression |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6513839/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31086272 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-43747-w |
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