Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience
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Front Behav Neurosci · Jan 2014
Environmental enrichment alters protein expression as well as the proteomic response to cocaine in rat nucleus accumbens.
Prior research demonstrated that environmental enrichment creates individual differences in behavior leading to a protective addiction phenotype in rats. Understanding the mechanisms underlying this phenotype will guide selection of targets for much-needed novel pharmacotherapeutics. The current study investigates differences in proteome expression in the nucleus accumbens of enriched and isolated rats and the proteomic response to cocaine self-administration using a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS) technique to quantify 1917 proteins. ⋯ The overall impression of the current results is that enriched saline-administering rats have a unique proteomic complement compared to enriched cocaine-administering rats as well as saline and cocaine-taking isolated rats. These results identify possible mechanisms of the protective phenotype and provide fertile soil for developing novel pharmacotherapeutics. Proteomics data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD000990.
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Interpersonal touch is of paramount importance in human social bonding and close relationships, allowing a unique channel for affect communication. So far the effect of touch on human physiology has been studied at an individual level. The present study aims at extending the study of affective touch from isolated individuals to truly interacting dyads. ⋯ In addition, physical touch induced strong and reliable changes in physiological states within individuals. These results support an instrumental role of interpersonal touch for affective support in close relationships. Furthermore, they suggest that touch alone allows the emergence of a somatovisceral resonance between interacting individuals, which in turn is likely to form the prerequisites for emotional contagion and empathy.
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Front Behav Neurosci · Jan 2014
ReviewTactile C fibers and their contributions to pleasant sensations and to tactile allodynia.
In humans converging evidence indicates that affective aspects of touch are signaled by low threshold mechanoreceptive C tactile (CT) afferents. Analyses of electrophysiological recordings, psychophysical studies in denervated subjects, and functional brain imaging, all indicate that CT primary afferents contribute to pleasant touch and provide an important sensory underpinning of social behavior. Considering both these pleasant and social aspects of gentle skin-to-skin contact, we have put forward a framework within which to consider CT afferent coding properties and pathways-the CT affective touch hypothesis. ⋯ However, in neuropathic pain conditions, light touch can elicit unpleasant sensations, so called tactile allodynia. In humans, tactile allodynia is associated with reduced CT mediated hedonic touch processing suggesting loss of the normally analgesic effect of CT signaling. We thus propose that the contribution of CT afferents to tactile allodynia is mainly through a loss of their normally pain inhibiting role.
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Front Behav Neurosci · Jan 2014
Generalization of fear-potentiated startle in the presence of auditory cues: a parametric analysis.
Intense fear responses observed in trauma-, stressor-, and anxiety-related disorders can be elicited by a wide range of stimuli similar to those that were present during the traumatic event. The present study investigated the experimental utility of fear-potentiated startle paradigms to study this phenomenon, known as stimulus generalization, in healthy volunteers. Fear-potentiated startle refers to a relative increase in the acoustic startle response to a previously neutral stimulus that has been paired with an aversive stimulus. ⋯ In Experiment 1, participants showed similar levels of fear-potentiated startle to the GS that were adjacent to the CS+, and discriminated between stimuli that were 2 or more degrees from the CS+. Experiment 2 demonstrated no fear-potentiated startle generalization. The current study is the first to use auditory cues to test generalization of conditioned fear responses; such cues may be especially relevant to combat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) where much of the traumatic exposure may involve sounds.
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Front Behav Neurosci · Jan 2014
Sex-specific modulation of juvenile social play behavior by vasopressin and oxytocin depends on social context.
We recently demonstrated that vasopressin (AVP) in the lateral septum modulates social play behavior differently in male and female juvenile rats. However, the extent to which different social contexts (i.e., exposure to an unfamiliar play partner in different environments) affect the regulation of social play remains largely unknown. Given that AVP and the closely related neuropeptide oxytocin (OXT) modulate social behavior as well as anxiety-like behavior, we hypothesized that these neuropeptides may regulate social play behavior differently in novel (novel cage) as opposed to familiar (home cage) social environments. ⋯ Moreover, none of the other drug treatments that altered social play had an effect on anxiety, suggesting that these drug-induced behavioral alterations are relatively specific to social behavior. Overall, we showed that AVP and OXT systems in the lateral septum modulate social play in juvenile rats in neuropeptide-, sex- and social context-specific ways. These findings underscore the importance of considering not only sex, but also social context, in how AVP and OXT modulate social behavior.