The social modulation of behaviour, cognition and stress reactivity during pregnancy and lactation

在哺乳动物中，一个非常重要的阶段是产前阶段，在这个阶段，环境因素可以塑造大脑的发育、生理和行为。怀孕期间的社会环境对后代的发育可能是至关重要的。例如，怀孕期间的社会不稳定通常会导致女儿的行为和神经内分泌男性化，而男孩的典型男性特征表现得不那么明显。此外，还描述了由于产前因素造成的认知能力受损和情绪行为和应激反应的变化。由于产前社会因素导致的行为特征、情绪行为和认知能力的改变通常被认为是偏离常态甚至是病态的。尽管如此，由产前因素带来的行为表型的变化可以代表对当前和/或未来环境状况的适应。然而，能够回答这些问题的经验数据却很少。我们可以在野生豚鼠身上证明，在怀孕和哺乳期间生活在稳定或不稳定的社会环境中的母亲的后代会发展出不同的行为特征。因此，这个项目的目的是在野生洞穴中调查这些不同行为特征的适应意义。为此，我们将在围栏中模拟已知发生的情况，在这种情况下，这些特定的行为策略应该具有优势：我们将在匹配不匹配实验中调查，在情景A中，行为策略A(由其母亲在怀孕和哺乳期生活在类似情况下的后代制定的一种策略)是否比策略B(一种策略将由其母亲在怀孕和哺乳期生活在不同的情境B中制定)具有优势，反之亦然。此外，我们还将调查这些不同的行为特征是否与不同的情绪行为、认知能力和应激反应有关。从这个项目中，我们期待着对行为策略的适应性以及它们与不同社会环境在生命早期阶段塑造的情绪性和认知能力之间的相关性有全新的见解。

In mammals a very important phase, in which environmental factors can shape brain development, physiology, and behaviour is the prenatal phase. The social environment during pregnancy can be crucial for the development of the offspring. For example, social instability during pregnancy generally brings about a behavioural and neuroendocrine masculinization in daughters and a less pronounced expression of male-typical traits in sons. Furthermore, impaired cognitive abilities and changed emotional behaviour and stress reactivity due to prenatal factors are described. The changed behavioural traits, emotional behaviour, and cognitive abilities due to prenatal social factors are often regarded as deviation from the norm or even as pathological. Nonetheless, the variation in behavioural phenotype brought about by prenatal factors can represent an adaptation to the prevailing and/or future environmental situation. However, empirical data to answer these questions are sparse. We could demonstrate in wild cavies that offspring of mothers, who had lived in a stable or an unstable social environment during pregnancy and lactation, developed different behavioural profiles. Thus, the aim of this project is to investigate in wild cavies the adaptive significance of these different behavioural traits. For this purpose we will mimic in enclosures situations, which are known to occur in nature, and in which these specific behavioural strategies should have advantages: We will investigate in match-mismatch-experiments, whether in situation A the behavioural strategy A (a strategy, which will be developed by offspring, whose mothers had lived in a similar situation during pregnancy and lactation) will have advantages over strategy B (a strategy, which will be developed by offspring, whose mothers had lived in a different situation B during pregnancy and lactation), and vice versa. Additionally, we will investigate whether these different behavioural traits are correlated with different emotional behaviour, cognitive abilities and stress reactivity. From this project we expect completely new insights into the adaptiveness of behavioural strategies and their correlation with emotionality and cognitive abilities shaped by different social environments during early phases of life.