Undergraduate Category: Health Degree Level: Abstract ID# 872

Tedi Rosenstein1, Naomi Zingman-Daniels1, Amy Kristl1, Craig F. Ferris1,3, C. Sue Rewritable Fidelity: How Monogamous Pair Bonds are Affected by a History Carter1,2, Allison Perkeybile1, Jason R. Yee1, William Kenkel1 1 Northeastern University, Dept. of Psychology, Center for Translational Neuroimaging; 2The Kinsey Institute, of Previous Bonding Experience in the Prairie (Microtus ochrogaster) Indiana University; 3Ekam Imaging, Boston MA BACKGROUND PARTNER PREFERENCE SOLITARY CAGE

Social is a fundamental aspect of the human Male preference for partner and stranger Male time spent in the solitary cage did not females declines over 10 pairings. condition whereby males and females undergo attachment. change over 10 pairings. 4000 4500

Reproduction and social behavior are based on a flexible physiological foundation which can accommodate life experience. 3500 4000

3000 3500

The provides an optimal model of social monogamy 2500 3000 within which it is possible to examine the biological underpinning of 2500 attachment. Social monogamy is defined as a mating strategy in 2000 Partner 2000 Solitary Cage which one breeding female and one breeding male closely 1500 Stranger Time (sec) Time 1500 associate with one another over several breeding seasons. It is 1000 hypothesized that social monogamy evolved due to the male’s 1000 inability to defend and monopolize multiple females. Socially 500 500 monogamous behavior is physiologically regulated by (sec) Huddling spent Time 0 Sample Sizes: 0 neuropeptides, such as and , as well as other Pair 1 n = 24 Pair 1 Pair 5 Pair 10 Pair 1 Pair 5 Pair 10 biological mechanisms. Furthermore, it has been implicated that Pair 5 n = 12 interactions between these neuropeptides lead to partner Pair 10 n = 2 preference and stranger aggression behaviors. TOTAL CONTACT TIME CAGE ENTRIES Male preference for total female contact time Male gross locomotor activity did not change Using the prairie vole model, we investigated the male capacity declines over 10 pairings. over 10 pairings. to form multiple pair bonds with new females over several pairings 600 4500 as well as the fidelity of those males to their mates compared with

a novel, inexperienced female. Repeated pairings and pair bond 4000 500 dissolution is meant to model the aging and resilience of brain 3500 400 systems that regulate social attachment . 3000

2500 Total 300 2000 Cage Entries 1500 200 1000 Entries Chamber 100 500

Total Social Contact Time (sec) Time Contact Social Total 0 0 Pair 1 Pair 5 Pair 10 Pair 1 Pair 5 Pair 10 METHODS SUMMARY • Our data suggest that prairie display a limited capacity for rewritable fidelity, as exemplified by the declining time spent with 1 familiar female mates over several breeding generations. 5 10 • In the future, we hope to use an open field test as well as a water maze in order to investigate the frequency of both depression and

Aragona BJ and Wang Z (2009). anxiety behaviors in male prairie voles.

Partner preference was tested by placing male voles in the center • Additionally, we hope to conduct receptor autoradiography chamber, with their female partners tethered in one chamber and an experiments with the aim of studying the distribution and function of unknown stranger female tethered in the other. Males were tested with their receptors as well as epigenetic analysis in order to first female mate, their fifth female mate, and their tenth female mate. investigate the neurobiological foundation of these behavior patterns.

ACKOWLEDGEMENTS: This research was supported by NICHD P01 HD075750. Jessica Males remained with each mate for 3 weeks (the length of a single Amacker, Meghan Barnes, Thom Barchet, David Marini, and Kelsey Moore. gestation in voles), at which time females were removed. Males remained References isolated for 1-2 weeks following the dissolution of each pair. 1. Aragona BJ and Wang Z (2009). regulation of social choice in a monogamous species. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 3:15. doi: 10.3389/neuro.08.015.2009. 2. Carter, C. S., DeVries, A. C., and Getz, L. L. (1995). Physiological substrates of mammalian monogamy: the prairie vole model. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 19, 303–314.