ArticleGenes, brain, and behavior2020
Mu opioid receptors in the medial preoptic area govern social play behavior in adolescent male rats.
Article in Genes, brain, and behavior, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural Mechanisms of Social Homeostasis: Dynamic Range Plasticity.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Epigenetic mechanisms of HIV and opioid-induced neuropathology: Potential therapies and interventions.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2025Review
- The transcriptome of playfulness is sex biased in the juvenile rat medial amygdala: A role for inhibitory neurons.Cell reports · 2025Article
- Opioid receptor signaling throughout ontogeny: Shaping neural and behavioral trajectories.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- RNA-sequencing reveals a shared neurotranscriptomic profile in the medial preoptic area of highly social songbirds and rats.Genes, brain, and behavior · 2024Article
- Distinct patterns of activity within columns of the periaqueductal gray are associated with functionally distinct birdsongs.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Article
- Paternal morphine exposure in rats reduces social play in adolescent male progeny without affecting drug-taking behavior in juvenile males or female offspring.Molecular and cellular neurosciences · 2023Article
- Distinct patterns of gene expression in the medial preoptic area are related to gregarious singing behavior in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).BMC neuroscience · 2023Article
- The medial preoptic area and its projections to the ventral tegmental area and the periaqueductal gray are activated in response to social play behavior in juvenile rats.Behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- The motivation to flock correlates with vocal-social behaviors and dopamine-related gene expression in male European starlings.Hormones and behavior · 2023Article
- A calcitonin receptor-expressing subregion of the medial preoptic area is involved in alloparental tolerance in common marmosets.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Using seasonality and birdsong to understand mechanisms underlying context-appropriate shifts in social motivation and reward.Hormones and behavior · 2022Review
- Birdsong and the Neural Regulation of Positive Emotion.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Preoptic Area Modulation of Arousal in Natural and Drug Induced Unconscious States.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Review
- Choosing the Optimal Rat Stock as a Model for Research into Pharmacological Correction of Male Sexual Dysfunction.Sovremennye tekhnologii v meditsine · 2021Article
- Immunolabeling Provides Evidence for Subregions in the Songbird Nucleus Accumbens and Suggests a Context-Dependent Role in Song in Male European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).Brain, behavior and evolution · 2021Article
- Endogenous opioids facilitate intrinsically-rewarded birdsong.Scientific reports · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
Neural systems underlying important behaviors are usually highly conserved across species. The medial preoptic area (MPOA) has been demonstrated to play a crucial role in reward associated with affiliative, nonsexual, social communication in songbirds. However, the role of MPOA in affiliative, rewarding social behaviors (eg, social play behavior) in mammals remains largely unknown. Here we applied our insights from songbirds to rats to determine whether opioids in the MPOA govern social play behavior in rats. Using an immediate early gene (ie, Egr1, early growth response 1) expression approach, we identified increased numbers of Egr1-labeled cells in the MPOA after social play in adolescent male rats. We also demonstrated that cells expressing mu opioid receptors (MORs, gene name Oprm1) in the MPOA displayed increased Egr1 expression when adolescent rats were engaged in social play using double immunofluorescence labeling of MOR and Egr1. Furthermore, using short hairpin RNA-mediated gene silencing we revealed that knockdown of Oprm1 in the MPOA reduced the number of total play bouts and the frequency of pouncing. Last, RNA sequencing differential gene expression analysis identified genes involved in neuronal signaling with altered expression after Oprm1 knockdown, and identified Egr1 as potentially a key modulator for Oprm1 in the regulation of social play behavior. Altogether, these results show that the MPOA is involved in social play behavior in adolescent male rats and support the hypothesis that the MPOA is part of a conserved neural circuit across vertebrates in which opioids act to govern affiliative, intrinsically rewarded social behaviors.
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