Effects of social isolation on 50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations, affective state, cognition, and neurotransmitter concentrations in the ventral tegmental and locus coeruleus of adult rats.

Vocal communication, cognition, and affective state are key features of sustained health and wellness, and because vocalizations are often socially-motivated, social experience likely plays a role in these behaviors. The monoaminergic systems of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the locus coeruleus (LC) are associated with social and reward processing, vocalization production, and neurotransmitter changes in response to environmental stressors. The effect of social isolation on these complex behaviors and the underlying neural mechanisms is relatively unknown. To add to this body of literature, we randomized adult male Long-Evans rats to control (housed with a cagemate) or isolated (housed individually) conditions and assayed ultrasonic vocalizations, cognition (novel object recognition test), anxiety (elevated plus maze) and anhedonia (sucrose preference test) at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 months of age. At 10 months, VTA and LC samples were assayed for dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin using high performance liquid chromatography. We tested the hypotheses that isolation 1) diminishes vocalizations and cognition, 2) increases anxiety and depression, and 3) increases levels of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin in the VTA and LC. Results showed isolation significantly reduced vocalization tonality (signal-to-noise ratio) and increased maximum frequency. There were no significant findings for cognition, anxiety, or anhedonia. Dopamine and serotonin and their respective metabolites were significantly increased in the VTA in isolated rats. These findings suggest chronic changes to social condition such as isolation affects vocalization production and levels of VTA neurotransmitters.