Noncanonical genomic imprinting in the monoamine system determines naturalistic foraging and brain-adrenal axis functions

ArcRegulates a Second-Guessing Cognitive Bias During Naturalistic Foraging Through Effects on Discrete Behavior Modules

“…While sex differences in decision-making heuristics are debated (Croson and Gneezy, 2009;Mowrey and Portman, 2012), it is known that risk taking, impulsivity and behavioral prioritization differ between males and females that could affect the behavioral alternatives to second-guessing (Mowrey and Portman, 2012). Indeed, in our other studies important sex differences in foraging were observed in mice (Bonthuis et al, 2022;Hörndli et al, 2019). Here, at the level of foraging modules, both Arc -/males and females show increased expression of Module 1 and decreased expression of Module 21, revealing shared behavioral effects at the module level.…”

“…We previously found that foraging patterns in mice are constructed from finite, genetically controlled modules (Bonthuis et al, 2022; Hörndli et al, 2019). Here, we uncovered evidence that specific foraging modules can underlie a cognitive bias.…”

“…We previously showed that mouse foraging involves finite, stereotyped behavior modules that are segmented by round trip excursions from the home 25, 26 . Here, using PHATE projections of multi- dimensional foraging data describing individual excursions, we showed that these modules are well defined components of the naturalistic foraging behavior landscape and are differentiated from more stochastic and free non-modular behaviors.…”

“…Objective approaches to study more naturalistic behaviors have been lacking, yet the development of data-driven methods to decompose spontaneous behaviors into discrete components is a growing area (Datta et al, 2019; Krakauer et al, 2017). We recently developed a naturalistic foraging assay and unsupervised machine learning methods for top-down decompositions of foraging in mice, revealing the structure and genetic mechanisms that affect different behavior components (Bonthuis et al, 2022; Hörndli et al, 2019). Our paradigm mimics key elements of the wild context, including a freely accessible home, sand patches of potential food, seeds, and digging.…”

Conservation and divergence of canonical and non-canonical imprinting in murids

“…Clearly, measuring the extent and conservation of imprinted gene expression in additional mammals, such as pig, cow, human (60) and macaques (53), complemented by interrogation of genetic and epigenetic differences at species-specific imprinted loci, will deepen our understanding of the evolution of genomic imprinting. Finally, there is an increasing body of evidence implicating canonical imprinted genes in complex behavioural traits (10, 96–100). Our observation that canonical imprinted gene expression is highly conserved in the rat opens the door to future mechanistic studies on the role of these genes in behavioural and other traits in this increasingly tractable model.…”