Dopamine regulation of social choice in a monogamous rodent species

“Such behaviors are the result of selection processes that favored reciprocity among close social groups, in which it was adaptive for individuals to spend relatively small amounts of energy to help unrelated members of the group in order to receive relatively large benefi ts of the resulting social organization (Pfeif…”

“…voles show high levels of parental care (Getz and Carter, 1996; Thomas and Birney, 1979) and it has been suggested that both parents are necessary for pup survival which selected for highly enduring pair bonds (Emlen and Oring, 1977; Kleiman, 1977; McGuire et al., 1993; Wang and Novak, 1992).”

“In particular, DA transmission within the NAc is critical for important aspects of reward processing (Berridge and Robinson, 2003; Everitt and Robbins, 2005; Roitman et al., 2005, 2008; Salamone and Correa, 2002; Wheeler et al., 2008) that may underlie cost-benefi t analyses related to choice…”

“Finally, we compare these fi ndings to studies that have examined the neural regulation of social decision-making in humans (Fisher et al., 2005; Kosfeld et al., 2005; Rilling et al., 2002).”

“While apomorphine binds both D1 and D2-like receptors, it binds D2-like receptors with a much greater affi nity (Missale et al., 1998).”

“, 2006; Wang and Aragona, 2004; Young and Wang, 2004) and associative learning is signifi cantly regulated by mesolimbic DA transmission (Di Chiara and Bassareo, 2007; Kelley, 2004; Wise, 2004).”

“…because it involves more than one agent and thus requires more sophisticated learning alorithms (Lee, 2008), or if it is more informative to regard social decision-making as largely guided by emotional social motivation and hedonic processing (Sanfey et al., 2003; Skuse and Gallagher, 2009).”

“These data indicate that, under natural circumstances, DA transmission is not uniformly increased as it is under certainly laboratory conditionings (Schultz, 2002).”

“Thus, DA transmission within the NAc shell may regulate partner preference formation through enhanced reward processing or incentive motivation (Berridge, 2007; Di Chiara and Bassareo, 2007).”

“However, the dynamic interplay between these two peptides and a host of other molecules, such as dopamine (Aragona & Wang 2009, Young et al. 2011) and endogenous opioids (Burkett et al. 2011), supports social behaviors, especially in the face of challenge.”

“to maintain the existing pair bond [8,10] and to limit extra-pair copulations.”

“Pair bonded males will then exhibit affiliative behavior towards their mates while expressing aggressive behavior towards strangers that can be blocked through antagonism of D1-like receptors within the nucleus accumbens (Aragona and Wang, 2009).”

“Many studies have also investigated the role of the mesolimbic dopamine system and opioid regulation of rewarding social behaviors such as pair-bonds between mates (Aragona, 2009; Resendez et al., 2012); we describe these and additional research avenues throughout.”