Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Maria Florencia Scaia | email: mflorenciascaia@gmail.com
Maria Florencia Scaia 1°, Luciano Cavallino 1°, Ibukun Akinrinade 3°, Giovanni Petri 4°, Rui Oliveira 2°
1° Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina
2° Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, Oeiras, Portugal
3° Hotchkiss Brain Institute and the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada
4° ISI Foundation and ISI Global Science Foundation, Torino, Italy
The neural mechanisms involved in fighting behaviors are usually studied in males but not in females, despite the fact that both sexes show aggressive behavior in different species. The aim of this work is to assess sex differences in intra-sexual aggression and to characterize the patterns of neuronal activation of the social-decision making network (SDMN) related to this behavior in zebrafish. Adult fish were exposed to social interaction with a same-sex opponent, and aggressive behavior and temporal dynamics were assessed. Both sexes show similar motivation for aggression, but female encounters show shorter conflict resolution. Sex differences on functional connectivity throughout the SDMN were assessed by immunofluorescence of the neuronal activation marker pS6. Results suggest that agonistic interactions increased neuronal activity in most brain areas of the SDMN in both sexes. Functional connectivity was assessed using bootstrapped adjacency matrices that capture the co-activation of the SDMN nodes. Each sex showed a distinct neural activation pattern associated with fight outcome, suggesting a sex-specific differential activation of the social brain as a consequence of social experience. We are also studying how female aggression can be modulated by the reproductive stage and the presence of an alarm substance. Overall, our study adds insights into sex differences in agonistic behavior and on the neuronal architecture of intra-sexual aggression in zebrafish.