Presentation Details
| Respiration Encodes Social Valence and Relative-Rank During Chemosensory-Guided Social Interactions Sequioa J.Smith1, Ayush Jain1, Vijay A.Taylor1, Simmone J.Sallo1, Thomas H.Heeps1, Tanish Madhar2, Nancy Padilla-Coreano1. 1University Of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.2Fort Myers High School, Fort Myers, FL, USA |
Abstract
Social interactions in mice are guided by chemosensory cues that dynamically reshape respiration and internal state. Respiratory patterns are tightly coupled with olfactory sampling and limbic activity, providing a continuous physiological readout of internal states. However, whether respiration encodes socially relevant information such as valence and dominance status during natural social interactions remains unclear. We recorded respiration in freely interacting mice during resident–intruder encounters with positive (juvenile), negative (aggressive CD1), and cagemate conspecifics. Respiratory patterns differed across social contexts and decoded social valence and dominance rank using leave-one-out cross-validated logistic regression, indicating that respiration carries structured social information beyond arousal. This finding implicates limbic valence circuits in shaping respiratory patterns. Because the basolateral amygdala (BLA) plays an important role in encoding social valence and functionally interacts with the mPFC to regulate approach and avoidance behaviors, we hypothesized that optogenetic activation of CaMKIIα–ChR2–expressing BLA terminals in the mPFC would modulate social investigation and respiration. In a within-subject design, terminal activation produced modest and variable effects on both behavior and respiratory rate across animals. To assess the contribution of olfactory input to positive social interaction, juvenile encounters were examined before and after chemical ablation (methimazole, 75 mg/kg) of the main olfactory epithelium (MOE). MOE ablation reduced juvenile investigation, consistent with the role of olfactory cues in social engagement. These findings establish a framework for examining how limbic circuits interact with internal-state signals during social behavior.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
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