RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Sex differences in neural representations of social and nonsocial reward in the medial prefrontal cortex
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2023.03.09.531947
DO 10.1101/2023.03.09.531947
A1 Isaac, Jennifer
A1 Karkare, Sonia
A1 Balasubramanian, Hymavathy
A1 Schappaugh, Nicholas
A1 Javier, Jarildy
A1 Rashid, Maha
A1 Murugan, Malavika
YR 2023
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/03/14/2023.03.09.531947.abstract
AB The reinforcing nature of social interactions is necessary for the maintenance of appropriate social behavior. However, the neural substrates underlying social reward processing remain unknown. It is also unclear whether these neural substrates are shared with those involved in nonsocial rewarding processing. We developed a fully automated, novel two choice (social-sucrose) operant assay in which mice choose between social and nonsocial rewards to directly compare the reward-related behaviors associated with two competing stimuli. We performed cellular resolution calcium imaging of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) neurons in male and female mice across varying states of water restriction and social isolation. We found that mPFC neurons maintain largely non-overlapping, flexible representations of social and nonsocial reward that vary with internal state in a sex-dependent manner. Additionally, optogenetic manipulation of mPFC activity during the reward period of the assay disrupted reward-seeking behavior. Thus, using a novel operant assay, we have identified sex-dependent, non-overlapping neural representations of social and nonsocial reward in the mPFC that vary with internal state and that are essential for appropriate reward-seeking behavior.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.