Carmon, H. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2024

Quantifying social roles in multi-animal videos using subject-aware deep-learning

Analyzing social behaviors is critical for many fields, including neuroscience, psychology, and ecology. While computational tools have been developed to analyze videos containing animals engaging in limited social interactions under specific experimental conditions, automated identification of the social roles of freely moving individuals in a multi-animal group remains unresolved. Here we describe a deep-learning-based system - named LabGym2 - for identifying and quantifying social roles in multi-animal groups. This system uses a subject-aware approach: it evaluates the behavioral state of every individual in a group of two or more animals while factoring in its social and environmental surroundings. We demonstrate the performance of subject-aware deep-learning in different species and assays, from partner preference in freely-moving insects to primate social interactions in the field. Our subject-aware deep learning approach provides a controllable, interpretable, and efficient framework to enable new experimental paradigms and systematic evaluation of interactive behavior in individuals identified within a group.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2022

Neuro-immune modulation of cholinergic signaling in an addiction vulnerability trait

Sign-tracking (ST) describes the propensity to approach and contact a Pavlovian reward cue. By contrast, goal-trackers (GTs) respond to such a cue by retrieving the reward. These behaviors index the presence of opponent cognitive-motivational traits, with STs exhibiting attentional control deficits, behavior dominated by incentive motivational processes, and vulnerability for addictive drug taking. Attentional control deficits in STs were previously attributed to attenuated cholinergic signaling, resulting from deficient translocation of intracellular choline transporters (CHTs) into synaptosomal plasma membrane. Here we investigated a post-translational modification of CHTs - poly-ubiquitination - and tested the hypothesis that elevated cytokine signaling in STs contributes to CHT modification. We demonstrated that intracellular CHTs, but not plasma membrane CHTs, are highly ubiquitinated in male and female sign-tracking rats when compared with GTs. Moreover, levels of cytokines measured in cortex and striatum, but not spleen, were higher in STs than in GTs. Activation of the innate immune system by systemic administration of the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) elevated ubiquitinated CHT levels in cortex and striatum of GTs only, suggesting ceiling effects in STs. In spleen, LPS increased levels of most cytokines in both phenotypes. In cortex, LPS particularly robustly increased levels of the chemokines CCL2 and CXCL10. Phenotype-specific increases were restricted to GTs, again suggesting ceiling effects in STs. These results indicate that interactions between elevated brain immune modulator signaling and CHT regulation are essential components of the neuronal underpinnings of the addiction vulnerability trait indexed by sign-tracking. Significance StatementSign-tracking rats (STs) have emerged as a fruitful animal model for determining the neuro-behavioral foundations, including the cholinergic-attentional control deficits, which heighten the risk for the manifestation of addictive behaviors. The results from the present experiments suggest that, in STs, elevated levels of neuro-immune signaling interact with a post-translational modification of choline transporters that yields a relatively low transporter capacity. Furthermore, the effects of activation of the innate immune system, by administrating the endotoxin lipopolysaccharide, mechanistically supported such an interaction. The results extend research on the neuronal vulnerabilities for addictive behaviors to the role of neuro-immune signaling and suggests a new role of neuro-immune modulators in influencing complex cognitive-motivational traits.

neuroscience↗