Abstract
Background
We used the highly prosocial prairie vole to test the hypothesis that higher-order
brain structure—microarchitecture and functional connectivity (FC)—would differ between
males from populations with distinctly different levels of prosocial behavior. Specifically,
we studied males from Illinois (IL), which display high levels of prosocial behavior,
and first generation males from Kansas dams and IL males (KI), which display the lowest
level of prosocial behavior and higher aggression. Behavioral differences between
these males are associated with overexpression of estrogen receptor alpha in the medial
amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and neuropeptide expression in the
paraventricular nucleus.
Methods
We compared apparent diffusion coefficient, fractional anisotropy, and blood oxygen
level–dependent resting-state FC between males.
Results
IL males displayed higher apparent diffusion coefficient in regions associated with
prosocial behavior, including the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, paraventricular
nucleus, and anterior thalamic nuclei, while KI males showed higher apparent diffusion
coefficient in the brainstem. KI males showed significantly higher fractional anisotropy
than IL males in 26 brain regions, with the majority being in the brainstem reticular
activating system. IL males showed more blood oxygen level–dependent resting-state
FC between the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, paraventricular nucleus, and medial
amygdala along with other brain regions, including the hippocampus and areas associated
with social and reward networks.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that gray matter microarchitecture and FC may play a role the
expression of prosocial behavior and that differences in other brain regions, especially
the brainstem, could be involved. The differences between males suggests that this
system represents a potentially valuable model system for studying emotional differences
and vulnerability to stress and addiction.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: September 05, 2020
Accepted:
August 18,
2020
Received in revised form:
August 7,
2020
Received:
June 2,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 Society of Biological Psychiatry.
