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Abstract(s)
Public information is widely available at low cost to animals living in social groups. For
instance, bystanders may eavesdrop on signaling interactions between conspecifics and use
it to adapt their subsequent behavior towards the observed individuals. This social eavesdropping
ability is expected to require specialized mechanisms such as social attention,
which selects social information available for learning. To begin exploring the genetic basis of
social eavesdropping, we used a previously established attention paradigm in the lab to study
the brain gene expression profile of male zebrafish (Danio rerio) in relation to the attention
they paid towards conspecifics involved or not involved in agonistic interactions. Microarray
gene chips were used to characterize their brain transcriptomes based on differential expression
of single genes and gene sets. These analyses were complemented by promoter regionbased
techniques. Using data from both approaches, we further drafted protein interaction
networks. Our results suggest that attentiveness towards conspecifics, whether interacting or
not, activates pathways linked to neuronal plasticity and memory formation. The network
analyses suggested that fos and jun are key players on this response, and that npas4a, nr4a1
and egr4 may also play an important role. Furthermore, specifically observing fighting interactions
further triggered pathways associated to a change in the alertness status (dnajb5) and
to other genes related to memory formation (btg2, npas4b), which suggests that the acquisition
of eavesdropped information about social relationships activates specific processes on
top of those already activated just by observing conspecifics.
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Citation
Plos One, 10(12), e0145801. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0145801
Publisher
Public Library Science