Transcriptional profiling of ventral tegmental area of male mice with alternative patterns of social behaviors

Poster (download) Olga Redina1, Vladimir Babenko2, Vadim Efimov3, Dmitry Smagin4, Irina Kovalenko5, Anna Galyamina6, Natalia Kudryavtseva71Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Laboratory of Evolutional Genetics, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, oredina@bionet.nsc.ru2Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, bob@bionet.nsc.ru3Laboratory of Molecular Genetic Systems Modeling, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, efimov@bionet.nsc.ru4Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, smagin@bionet.nsc.ru5Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, koir@bionet.nsc.ru6Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, galyamina@bionet.nsc.ru7Laboratory of Neuropathology Modeling, Neurogenetics of Social Behavior Sector, Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, n.n.kudryavtseva@gmail.com The activity of ventral tegmental area (VTA) neurons plays a crucial role in the reward circuit, emotional and addictive behaviors in animals and humans. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the functional changes in VTA neurons under stress arising from social interactions, RNA-Seq analysis was used to compare the transcriptome profiles in the VTA of three groups of male mice: chronically winning mice with positive social experience in daily agonistic interactions, chronically defeated mice with negative social experience in daily agonistic interactions, and control mice having no experience of agonistic interactions. The data obtained showed that both winning and defeated mice experience stress, however, in defeated animals, the repeated agonistic interactions have a stronger effect and cause more significant changes in the levels of gene transcription. Several genes have been identified that may be involved in the determination of alternative behavioral phenotypes in groups of male mice with alternative social experience.

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