Uncovering hidden prosocial behaviors underlying aggression motivation in mice and young children.

Background: Animals exhibit a wide range of social behaviors, including positive actions that promote social cohesion and negative behaviors associated with asserting dominance. While these behaviors are often viewed as opposites, they can also exist independently or coexist in complex ways, necessitating further investigation into their interrelationships.

Results: To study the interplay between these two types of behaviors, we examined mouse social behaviors using resident-intruder assays and revealed a negative correlation between social aggression and prosocial allogrooming.

The impact of social partners: investigating mixed-strain housing effects on aging in female mice.

Aging is a multifaceted process characterized by the gradual decline of physiological functions and can be modulated by various internal and external factors. While social interactions have been shown to affect behaviors and physiology in different species, the impact of social partners on aging-related phenotypes and lifespan in mice remains understudied. To address this question, we investigated various aging-related traits and lifespan in two mouse strains, C57BL/6J and BALB/c, under two different housing conditions: mixed-strain and same-strain housing.

An automatic system for recognizing fly courtship patterns via an image processing method.

Fruit fly courtship behaviors composed of a series of actions have always been an important model for behavioral research. While most related studies have focused only on total courtship behaviors, specific courtship elements have often been underestimated. Identifying these courtship element details is extremely labor intensive and would largely benefit from an automatic recognition system.

Comparisons of lifespan and stress resistance between sexes in .

Animals exhibit different extents of sexual dimorphism in a variety of phenotypes. Sex differences in longevity, one of the most complex life history traits, have also been reported. Although lifespan regulation has been studied extensively in the fruit fly, , the sex differences in lifespan have not been consistent in previous studies.

Minimal influence of estrous cycle on studies of female mouse behaviors.

Introduction: Sex bias has been an issue in many biomedical fields, especially in neuroscience. In rodent research, many scientists only focused on male animals due to the belief that female estrous cycle gives rise to unacceptable, high levels of variance in the experiments. However, even though female sexual behaviors are well known to be regulated by estrous cycle, which effects on other non-sexual behaviors were not always consistent in previous reports.

L-4-Fluorophenylglycine produces antidepressant-like effects and enhances resilience to stress in mice.

D-serine has attracted increasing attention for its possible role in depression. L-4-Fluorophenylglycine (L-4FPG), an inhibitor of the neutral amino acid transporter ASCT1/2, has been shown to regulate extracellular D-serine levels. The present study aimed to explore the potential antidepressant effects of L-4FPG.

The deleterious effects of old social partners on Drosophila lifespan and stress resistance.

Social interactions play important roles in the modulation of behavior, physiology, and, potentially, lifespan. Although longevity has been studied extensively in different model organisms, due to the complexity of social environments, the social modulation of aging remains poorly investigated. The present study used the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model to study lifespan and stress resistance under different social conditions.

Lack of social touch alters anxiety-like and social behaviors in male mice.

The importance of social interactions has been reported in a variety of animal species. In human and rodent models, social isolation is known to alter social behaviors and change anxiety or depression levels. During the coronavirus pandemic, although people could communicate with each other through other sensory cues, social touch was mostly prohibited under different levels of physical distancing policies.

The decisive role of subordination in social hierarchy in weanling mice and young children.

Social hierarchy plays important roles in maintaining social structures. Despite similarity in concept, frameworks of human hierarchy have seldom been investigated in parallel with other animals. Moreover, the importance of subordination in hierarchical formation has been largely underestimated in previous research.

Mammalian pheromones: emerging properties and mechanisms of detection.

The concept of mammalian pheromones was established decades before the discovery of any bioactive ligands. Therefore, their molecular identity, native sources, and the meaning of their detection has been largely speculative. There has been recent success in identifying a variety of candidate mouse pheromones and other specialized odors.

Murine pheromone proteins constitute a context-dependent combinatorial code governing multiple social behaviors.

During social interactions, an individual's behavior is largely governed by the subset of signals emitted by others. Discrimination of "self" from "other" regulates the territorial urine countermarking behavior of mice. To identify the cues for this social discrimination and understand how they are interpreted, we designed an olfactory-dependent countermarking assay.

Drosophila life span and physiology are modulated by sexual perception and reward.

Sensory perception can modulate aging and physiology across taxa. We found that perception of female sexual pheromones through a specific gustatory receptor expressed in a subset of foreleg neurons in male fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, rapidly and reversibly decreases fat stores, reduces resistance to starvation, and limits life span. Neurons that express the reward-mediating neuropeptide F are also required for pheromone effects.

Dietary effects on cuticular hydrocarbons and sexual attractiveness in Drosophila.

Dietary composition is known to have profound effects on many aspects of animal physiology, including lifespan, general health, and reproductive potential. We have previously shown that aging and insulin signaling significantly influence the composition and sexual attractiveness of Drosophila melanogaster female cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), some of which are known to be sex pheromones. Because diet is intimately linked to aging and to the activity of nutrient-sensing pathways, we asked how diet affects female CHCs and attractiveness.

Insulin signaling mediates sexual attractiveness in Drosophila.

Sexually attractive characteristics are often thought to reflect an individual's condition or reproductive potential, but the underlying molecular mechanisms through which they do so are generally unknown. Insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling (IIS) is known to modulate aging, reproduction, and stress resistance in several species and to contribute to variability of these traits in natural populations. Here we show that IIS determines sexual attractiveness in Drosophila through transcriptional regulation of genes involved in the production of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC), many of which function as pheromones.

Aging modulates cuticular hydrocarbons and sexual attractiveness in Drosophila melanogaster.

Attractiveness is a major component of sexual selection that is dependent on sexual characteristics, such as pheromone production, which often reflect an individual's fitness and reproductive potential. Aging is a process that results in a steady decline in survival and reproductive output, yet little is known about its effect on specific aspects of attractiveness. In this report we asked how aging impacts pheromone production and sexual attractiveness in Drosophila melanogaster.

Sensory perception and aging in model systems: from the outside in.

Sensory systems provide organisms from bacteria to humans with the ability to interact with the world. Numerous senses have evolved that allow animals to detect and decode cues from sources in both their external and internal environments. Recent advances in understanding the central mechanisms by which the brains of simple organisms evaluate different cues and initiate behavioral decisions, coupled with observations that sensory manipulations are capable of altering organismal lifespan, have opened the door for powerful new research into aging.

Carbon dioxide sensing modulates lifespan and physiology in Drosophila.

For nearly all life forms, perceptual systems provide access to a host of environmental cues, including the availability of food and mates as well as the presence of disease and predators. Presumably, individuals use this information to assess the current and future states of the environment and to enact appropriate developmental, behavioral, and regulatory decisions. Recent work using the nematode worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, and the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, has established that aging is subject to modulation through neurosensory systems and that this regulation is evolutionarily conserved.