III. How Do Individual Differences in Social-Emotional Behavior Emerge Over the Lifespan?Â
Huddling is an important, early-appearing social behavior in rats and mice (e.g., Harshaw & Alberts, 2012; Harshaw et al., 2014). It’s also an important behavior in many other small mammals, including many primates. Interestingly, several studies in rabbits and rats have linked personality-like phenotypes (PLPs) in adulthood to where individuals tend to be located within the huddle (i.e., huddle position) during early development (e.g., Rodel & Meyer, 2011). These effects are presumably driven by individual differences in metabolism and thermoregulation, however, there are still many unanswered questions about how experience huddling with siblings in the nest during early development impacts the emergence of PLPs. The MusLab is currently completing a longitudinal study of how variation in thermoregulatory and social-emotional phenotypes covary over the course of normal development in mice (Mus musculus) and relate to experience in the huddle during early development.
IV. How Does Ambient Temperature Affect the Expression of Social-Emotional Behavior in Mice?
There is a growing consensus that temperatures in laboratories and rodent vivaria may be metabolically stressful for mice, given their small size and low thermal inertia (e.g., Dvorsky, 2016). The MusLab is currently finalizing a large study examining how ambient temperature during both rearing (i.e., in the colony room) and testing (i.e., lab) impacts the social and emotional behaviors displayed by mice during standard tests of social-emotional functioning.
V. Developing Automated Methods for Detecting Repetitive Phenotypes in Behavioral Data
The PI is currently developing algorithms for multi-scale detection of repetitive phenotypes in the kind of x,y data produced by conventional programs for automated tracking of animal trajectories. Given that the quantification of repetitive phenotypes is often confounded by anxiety in many common tests (e.g., automated holeboard), the PI is also working on improved, motif-based approaches for measuring repetitive phenotypes in all possible testing environments. As shown in the Figure below, we are also working on improved visualizations of such “track” data for use in both Open Field (below, left) and Automated Holeboard (below, right) scenarios.
VI. Collaborations
The MusLab is actively collaborating with a number of other labs and researchers, including the Early Sensory Experiences lab at IUPUC and the Animal Behavior Lab at IU, Bloomington.