Mapping social behavior-induced brain activation at cellular resolution in the mouse.

Area of Science:

• Systems Neuroscience
• Neurobiology
• Behavioral Neuroscience

Background:

• Understanding the neural basis of behavior is crucial in systems neuroscience.
• Investigating how specific brain activation patterns mediate complex social behaviors is a key challenge.
• Sex-specific social behaviors, such as discrimination and recognition, require detailed neural mapping.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply an automated method for mapping brain activation in the male mouse brain.
• To investigate the neural representations of sex-specific social behaviors, including sex discrimination and social recognition.
• To correlate specific brain activation patterns with distinct features of social behaviors.

Main Methods:

• Utilized immediate-early gene c-fos as a marker for neuronal activation.
• Employed serial two-photon tomography for visualizing c-fos-expressing neurons (c-fos-GFP+).
• Developed computational methods for detecting, registering to an atlas, and statistically analyzing neuronal distribution and numbers.

Main Results:

• Identified distinct and shared patterns of male brain activation evoked by female and male social interactions.
• Revealed neural correlates for sex discrimination and social recognition behaviors.
• Quantified the numbers and densities of activated neurons in specific brain regions and correlated activity with behavioral features.

Conclusions:

• The automated mapping method enables efficient screening of behavior-evoked brain activation in mice.
• This approach provides novel insights into the neural circuitry underlying sex-specific social behaviors.
• The study advances the field of systems neuroscience by offering a scalable tool for neural circuit analysis.