Amylin-Calcitonin receptor signaling in the medial preoptic area mediates affiliative social behaviors in female mice

Kansai Fukumitsu,Thomas J Mchugh,Shigeyoshi Itohara,Chihiro Yoshihara,Teppo Maruyama,Arthur J Huang,Kumi O Kuroda,Misato Kaneko,Minoru Tanaka

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-28131-z

Kansai Fukumitsu, Thomas J Mchugh + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28131-z

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Abstract

Social animals actively engage in contact with conspecifics and experience stress upon isolation. However, the neural mechanisms coordinating the sensing and seeking of social contacts are unclear. Here we report that amylin-calcitonin receptor (Calcr) signaling in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) mediates affiliative social contacts among adult female mice. Isolation of females from free social interactions first induces active contact-seeking, then depressive-like behavior, concurrent with a loss of Amylin mRNA expression in the MPOA. Reunion with peers induces physical contacts, activates both amylin- and Calcr-expressing neurons, and leads to a recovery of Amylin mRNA expression. Chemogenetic activation of amylin neurons increases and molecular knockdown of either amylin or Calcr attenuates contact-seeking behavior, respectively. Our data provide evidence in support of a previously postulated origin of social affiliation in mammals.

Highlights

Social animals actively engage in contact with conspecifics and experience stress upon isolation
Among the whole medial preoptic area (MPOA), amylin is robustly expressed in the cMPOA and the anterior commissural nucleus (ACN) and is only moderately expressed in the medial part of the medial preoptic nucleus (MPNm) of C57BL/6 adult female mice under group housing conditions (Fig. 1a, b)
These results suggested a dependence of Amylin mRNA expression on the amount of social interaction

Summary

Introduction

Social animals actively engage in contact with conspecifics and experience stress upon isolation. Nonhuman mammals with sociable traits, including laboratory rats, mice, and the majority of diurnal primates, live in groups and actively engage in social contact at least under certain conditions[3,4,5]. In many mammalian species, females exhibit higher sociability and emotional responses to social isolation than males[3,21,24,25,26,27]. This may be related to maternal care: group living often provides significant benefits for females’ offspring care. We investigated the neural circuits underlying the sensing and seeking of social contacts using adult female laboratory mice

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Conclusion