Fighting fish: how the social decision making network and sex steroids can explain aggression.

SOMOZA GUSTAVO; PANDOLFI M; SCAIA FLORENCIA; OLIVEIRA RUI

Simposio; XXXV Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias. Congreso virtual; 2020

The neural substrate of social behavior has been described as a ?social decision-making network?(SDMN) in which each brain area is involved in multiple forms of social behavior, includingaggression. Interestingly, the neuroendocrine basis of fighting behavior is understudied in femaleswhen compared to males. The aim of this study is to compare mechanisms regulating intrasexualaggression in male and female fish. In the first module, we studied the neural substrate of aggressionin zebrafish. After performing dyadic encounters, behavioral data is clustered into two groupscorresponding to both sexes. Network analysis shows a higher activation in all brain areas in animalsexposed to social interaction, and suggests that patterns of brain activation in the SDMN in femalewinners differs from female losers and males. This suggests that differences in fighting behaviorbetween males and female are related to differential pattern of brain activation in the SDMN. In thesecond module we studied the role of sex steroids on aggression in the cichlid Cichlasoma dimerus.Multivariate analysis including hormonal, morphometric and behavioral variables suggests thatclustering of males and females into winners and losers is explained by specific agonistic displays,and that estradiol might have a role not only as a positive modulator of aggression, but also as anegative modulator of submission. This study highlights the importance of studying different speciesto study aggression.