Abstract

Sickness behavior is a set of behavioral changes that are part of an adaptive strategy to overcome infection. Mice that interact with conspecifics displaying sickness behavior also show relevant behavioral changes. In this work we sought to determine the role of sickness behavior display by a dominant mouse as a promoter of hierarchy instability. We treated the dominant mouse within a dyad with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (400 μg/kg, i.p.) for three consecutive days and assessed social dominance behavior. Since elder animals display increased inflammatory responses and the behaviors toward conspecifics are influenced by kinship we also assessed whether kinship and age, might influence sickness related hierarchy instability. Our results show that administration of LPS in the dominant mouse promotes social instability within a dyad, and indicates that this instability could be influenced by kinship and age.

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Publisher Full Text

Authors

Cohn DW, Gabanyi I, Kinoshita D, de Sá-Rocha LC

Institution

University of São Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Pathology, Neuroimmunomodulation Research Group, Brazil. dwhcohn@gmail.com

Source

Behavioural processes 91:1 2012 Sep pg 54-60

MeSH

Age Factors
Animals
Dominance-Subordination
Family
Hierarchy, Social
Illness Behavior
Lipopolysaccharides
Male
Mice
Motor Activity

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Language

eng

PubMed ID

22664349