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Background: Mental disorders that
Behavior: My laboratory is particularly interested in juvenile sociality. Adult social behaviors are strongly influenced by reproductive priorities (e.g. mating, Genetics: We are now attempting to identify genes that modulate juvenile social approach of two inbred mouse strains, the socially responsive C57BL/6J and the less socially responsive BALB/cJ strain. We measure social approach of F2 offspring from these two parental strains and we are beginning quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis to identify associations between social approach and specific chromosomal regions.
13-lined Ground Squirrels: To control for the possibility that the social motivations of juvenile laboratory mice are artifacts of extensive human selection, we also conduct field and lab studies with 13-lined ground squirrels (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus). We find evidence for social reward among early adolescent squirrels. There is an ongoing program within the laboratory to study social motivations in this captive species.
Recent Publications
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Department of Surgery, University
of Wisconsin Medical School |
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feature significant psychosocial impairment include mood disorders, substance abuse, autism and schizophrenia. The psychosocial impairments associated with substance abuse and mental illness broadly share two common features. First, they feature abnormal ‘affective’ states, which include depressed anticipation of, or reward from, experiences which normal individuals find pleasurable. Second, affective disorders are often identified within a social context. Autism, for example, features an inability to share enjoyment or perspective with others. 
territory defense, and hierarchy) as well as underlying reproductive hormones. We found that patterns of social approach differ between juvenile and adult mice. Among early adolescent mice, social approach and concurrent ultrasonic vocalizations differ between strains, but not between sexes. By the onset of reproductive maturity, strain-dependent differences in social approach are obscured by gender biases. Adapting a measure of drug reward, the conditioned place preference test, we study social reward and isolation aversion in young mice. We found that social encounter can be sufficiently rewarding to ascribe value to an otherwise neutral environment. We also found that juvenile social reward is sensitive to background strain, providing the first evidence for a genetic influence on the degree of mouse social reward.
Physiology: Endogenous opioid expression is responsive to social encounter and food reward. Administration of synthetic opiates can modulate social motivations. We study patterns of gene expression and glucose uptake in response to morphine, food and social reward access and to the cues predicting these rewards. 