Studie über die Rolle des zentralen Oxytocinsystems in der Tier-Mensch-Bindung: Domestizierte russische Silberfüchse und Ratten im Fokus der Wissenschaft

• Antragsteller: Professor Valery Grinevich, Ph.D.
• Fachliche Zuordnung: Biologie des Verhaltens und der Sinne ; Kognitive, systemische und Verhaltensneurobiologie
• Förderung: Förderung von 2020 bis 2024
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 444944116

• Erstellungsjahr: 2025

Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse

This project, initially focused on study of the role of oxytocin in fox domestication, has been reoriented due to current political challenges into entirely novel field – investigating how human-rat bonding influences vocalizations and facial expressions during tickling, and the role of oxytocin in these processes, which partially mimic aspects of domestication. Earlier studies demonstrated that tickle habituation increases vocal responses and approach behavior in juvenile laboratory rats and focused primarily on fully habituated animals. However, the habituation process itself remains poorly understood. In the current project, we analyzed the change in vocalization rates over a two-week tickle habituation period in rats. Our findings revealed a significant increase in 50 kHz vocalization rates shortly before tickle contact as habituation progressed, indicating the development of rewarding anticipation. Additionally, we assessed whether humans naïve to rat vocalizations could identify the emotional valence of transposed rat calls. Remarkably, participants, despite no prior exposure, consistently identified the positive emotional valence of 50 kHz vocalizations and the negative valence of 22 kHz calls. This suggests that the presence of universal acoustic features in emotional valence communication across species and frequency ranges. Future work will expand on these findings by analyzing rat facial expressions during the approach of familiar humans, further elucidating the mechanisms of human-animal bonding and its parallels with domestication.

Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)

• Astrocytes mediate the effect of oxytocin in the central amygdala on neuronal activity and affective states in rodents. Nature Neuroscience, 24(4), 529-541.
  Wahis, Jérôme; Baudon, Angel; Althammer, Ferdinand; Kerspern, Damien; Goyon, Stéphanie; Hagiwara, Daisuke; Lefevre, Arthur; Barteczko, Lara; Boury-Jamot, Benjamin; Bellanger, Benjamin; Abatis, Marios; Da Silva, Gouveia Miriam; Benusiglio, Diego; Eliava, Marina; Rozov, Andrei; Weinsanto, Ivan; Knobloch-Bollmann, Hanna Sophie; Kirchner, Matthew K.; Roy, Ranjan K. ... & Charlet, Alexandre
  
• Territorial blueprint in the hippocampal system. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(10), 831-842.
  Wirth, Sylvia; Soumier, Amelie; Eliava, Marina; Derdikman, Dori; Wagner, Shlomo; Grinevich, Valery & Sirigu, Angela
  
• Calcium imaging and BAPTA loading of amygdala astrocytes in mouse brain slices. STAR Protocols, 3(1), 101159.
  Baudon, Angel; Clauss-Creusot, Etienne; Darbon, Pascal; Patwell, Ryan; Grinevich, Valery & Charlet, Alexandre
  
• Compartmental Neuropeptide Release Measured Using a New Oxytocin Sensor. openRxiv.
  Qian, Tongrui; Wang, Huan; Wang, Peng; Geng, Lan; Mei, Long; Osakada, Takuya; Tang, Yan; Kania, Alan; Grinevich, Valery; Stoop, Ron; Lin, Dayu; Luo, Minmin & Li, Yulong
  
• Fear, love, and the origins of canid domestication: An oxytocin hypothesis. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 9, 100100.
  Herbeck, Yury E.; Eliava, Marina; Grinevich, Valery & MacLean, Evan L.
  
• Identification and three-dimensional reconstruction of oxytocin receptor expressing astrocytes in the rat and mouse brain. STAR Protocols, 3(1), 101160.
  Althammer, Ferdinand; Krause, Eric G.; de Kloet, Anette D.; Smith, Justin; Grinevich, Valery; Charlet, Alexandre & Stern, Javier E.
  
• Oxytocin normalizes altered circuit connectivity for social rescue of the Cntnap2 knockout mouse. Neuron, 110(5), 795-808.e6.
  Choe, Katrina Y.; Bethlehem, Richard A.I.; Safrin, Martin; Dong, Hongmei; Salman, Elena; Li, Ying; Grinevich, Valery; Golshani, Peyman; DeNardo, Laura A.; Peñagarikano, Olga; Harris, Neil G. & Geschwind, Daniel H.
  
• Oxytocin-based therapies for treatment of Prader-Willi and Schaaf-Yang syndromes: evidence, disappointments, and future research strategies. Translational Psychiatry, 12(1).
  Althammer, Ferdinand; Muscatelli, Francoise; Grinevich, Valery & Schaaf, Christian P.
  
• Transcription factor Creb3l1 maintains proteostasis in neuroendocrine cells. Molecular Metabolism, 63, 101542.
  Greenwood, Mingkwan; Gillard, Benjamin T.; Farrukh, Rizwan; Paterson, Alex; Althammer, Ferdinand; Grinevich, Valery; Murphy, David & Greenwood, Michael P.
  
• Viral vectors for opto-electrode recording and photometry-based imaging of oxytocin neurons in anesthetized and socially interacting rats. STAR Protocols, 3(1), 101032.
  Tang, Yan; Benusiglio, Diego; Lefevre, Arthur; Küppers, Stephanie; Lapies, Olga; Kerspern, Damien; Charlet, Alexandre & Grinevich, Valery
  
• An analgesic pathway from parvocellular oxytocin neurons to the periaqueductal gray in rats. Nature Communications, 14(1).
  Iwasaki, Mai; Lefevre, Arthur; Althammer, Ferdinand; Clauss, Creusot Etienne; Łąpieś, Olga; Petitjean, Hugues; Hilfiger, Louis; Kerspern, Damien; Melchior, Meggane; Küppers, Stephanie; Krabichler, Quirin; Patwell, Ryan; Kania, Alan; Gruber, Tim; Kirchner, Matthew K.; Wimmer, Moritz; Fröhlich, Henning; Dötsch, Laura; Schimmer, Jonas ... & Charlet, Alexandre
  
• High-calorie diets uncouple hypothalamic oxytocin neurons from a gut-to-brain satiation pathway via κ-opioid signaling. Cell Reports, 42(10), 113305.
  Gruber, Tim; Lechner, Franziska; Murat, Cahuê; Contreras, Raian E.; Sanchez-Quant, Eva; Miok, Viktorian; Makris, Konstantinos; Le Thuc, Ophélia; González-García, Ismael; García-Clave, Elena; Althammer, Ferdinand; Krabichler, Quirin; DeCamp, Lisa M.; Jones, Russell G.; Lutter, Dominik; Williams, Rhiannan H.; Pfluger, Paul T.; Müller, Timo D.; Woods, Stephen C. ... & García-Cáceres, Cristina
  
• Oxytocin activity in the paraventricular and supramammillary nuclei of the hypothalamus is essential for social recognition memory in rats. Molecular Psychiatry, 29(2), 412-424.
  Thirtamara, Rajamani Keerthi; Barbier, Marie; Lefevre, Arthur; Niblo, Kristi; Cordero, Nicholas; Netser, Shai; Grinevich, Valery; Wagner, Shlomo & Harony-Nicolas, Hala
  
• Oxytocin promotes prefrontal population activity via the PVN-PFC pathway to regulate pain. Neuron, 111(11), 1795-1811.e7.
  Liu, Yaling; Li, Anna; Bair-Marshall, Chloe; Xu, Helen; Jee, Hyun Jung; Zhu, Elaine; Sun, Mengqi; Zhang, Qiaosheng; Lefevre, Arthur; Chen, Zhe Sage; Grinevich, Valery; Froemke, Robert C. & Wang, Jing