Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

Abstract Social hierarchy is a potent modulator of behavior, that is typically established through overt agonistic interactions between individuals in the group. Once established, social ranks are maintained through subtler interactions allowing the redirection of energy away from agonistic interact...

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Autores principales:	Diana F. Costa, Marta A. Moita, Cristina Márquez
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/e42df45fd36a4a99981fe8fbb0f4cb6d
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:e42df45fd36a4a99981fe8fbb0f4cb6d2021-12-02T16:08:06ZNovel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats10.1038/s41598-021-93818-02045-2322https://doaj.org/article/e42df45fd36a4a99981fe8fbb0f4cb6d2021-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93818-0https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Social hierarchy is a potent modulator of behavior, that is typically established through overt agonistic interactions between individuals in the group. Once established, social ranks are maintained through subtler interactions allowing the redirection of energy away from agonistic interactions towards other needs. The available tasks for assessing social rank in rats allow the study of the mechanisms by which social hierarches are formed in early phases but fail to assess the maintenance of established hierarchies between stable pairs of animals, which might rely on distinct neurobiological mechanisms. Here we present and validate a novel trial-based dominancy assay, the modified Food Competition test, where established social hierarchies can be identified in the home cage of non-food deprived pairs of male rats. In this task, we introduce a small conflict in the home cage, where access to a new feeder containing palatable pellets can only be gained by one animal at a time. We found that this subtle conflict triggered asymmetric social interactions and resulted in higher consumption of food by one of the animals in the pair, which reliably predicted hierarchy in other tests. Our findings reveal stable dominance status in pair-housed rats and provide a novel tool for the evaluation of established social hierarchies, the modified Food Competition test, that is robust and easy to implement.Diana F. CostaMarta A. MoitaCristina MárquezNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-18 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Diana F. Costa Marta A. Moita Cristina Márquez Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats
description	Abstract Social hierarchy is a potent modulator of behavior, that is typically established through overt agonistic interactions between individuals in the group. Once established, social ranks are maintained through subtler interactions allowing the redirection of energy away from agonistic interactions towards other needs. The available tasks for assessing social rank in rats allow the study of the mechanisms by which social hierarches are formed in early phases but fail to assess the maintenance of established hierarchies between stable pairs of animals, which might rely on distinct neurobiological mechanisms. Here we present and validate a novel trial-based dominancy assay, the modified Food Competition test, where established social hierarchies can be identified in the home cage of non-food deprived pairs of male rats. In this task, we introduce a small conflict in the home cage, where access to a new feeder containing palatable pellets can only be gained by one animal at a time. We found that this subtle conflict triggered asymmetric social interactions and resulted in higher consumption of food by one of the animals in the pair, which reliably predicted hierarchy in other tests. Our findings reveal stable dominance status in pair-housed rats and provide a novel tool for the evaluation of established social hierarchies, the modified Food Competition test, that is robust and easy to implement.
format	article
author	Diana F. Costa Marta A. Moita Cristina Márquez
author_facet	Diana F. Costa Marta A. Moita Cristina Márquez
author_sort	Diana F. Costa
title	Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats
title_short	Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats
title_full	Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats
title_fullStr	Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats
title_full_unstemmed	Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats
title_sort	novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/e42df45fd36a4a99981fe8fbb0f4cb6d
work_keys_str_mv	AT dianafcosta novelcompetitiontestforfoodrewardsrevealsstabledominancestatusinadultmalerats AT martaamoita novelcompetitiontestforfoodrewardsrevealsstabledominancestatusinadultmalerats AT cristinamarquez novelcompetitiontestforfoodrewardsrevealsstabledominancestatusinadultmalerats
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Novel competition test for food rewards reveals stable dominance status in adult male rats

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