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According to the social decision-making (SDM) network hypothesis, SDM is
encoded in a network of forebrain and midbrain structures in a distributed
and dynamic fashion, such that the expression of a given social behaviour
is better reflected by the overall profile of activation across the
different loci rather than by the activity of a single node. This proposal
has the implicit assumption that SDM relies on integration across brain
regions, rather than on regional specialization. Here we tested the
occurrence of functional localization and of functional connectivity in
the SDM network. For this purpose we used zebrafish to map different
social behaviour states into patterns of neuronal activity, as indicated
by the expression of the immediate early genes c-fos and egr-1, across the
SDM network. The results did not support functional localization, as some
loci had similar patterns of activity associated with different social
behaviour states, and showed socially driven changes in functional
connectivity. Thus, this study provides functional support to the SDM
network hypothesis and suggests that the neural context in which a given
node of the network is operating (i.e. the state of its interconnected
areas) is central to its functional relevance.
312 views reported since publication in 2015.