Stress axis programming generates long-term effects on cognitive abilities in a cooperative breeder.

Reyes-Contreras, Maria; Taborsky, Barbara (2022). Stress axis programming generates long-term effects on cognitive abilities in a cooperative breeder. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological sciences, 289(1975), p. 20220117. The Royal Society 10.1098/rspb.2022.0117

Full text not available from this repository.

The ability to flexibly adjust behaviour to social and non-social challenges is important for successfully navigating variable environments. Social competence, i.e. adaptive behavioural flexibility in the social domain, allows individuals to optimize their expression of social behaviour. Behavioural flexibility outside the social domain aids in coping with ecological challenges. However, it is unknown if social and non-social behavioural flexibility share common underlying cognitive mechanisms. Support for such shared mechanism would be provided if the same neural mechanisms in the brain affected social and non-social behavioural flexibility similarly. We used individuals of the cooperatively breeding fish Neolamprologus pulcher that had undergone early-life programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-interrenal axis by exposure to (i) cortisol, (ii) the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist mifepristone, or (iii) control treatments, and where effects of stress-axis programming on social flexibility occurred. One year after the treatments, adults learned a colour discrimination task and subsequently, a reversal-learning task testing for behavioural flexibility. Early-life mifepristone treatment marginally enhanced learning performance, whereas cortisol treatment significantly reduced behavioural flexibility. Thus, early-life cortisol treatment reduced both social and non-social behavioural flexibility, suggesting a shared cognitive basis of behavioural flexibility. Further our findings imply that early-life stress programming affects the ability of organisms to flexibly cope with environmental stressors.

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) 08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Behavioural Ecology
UniBE Contributor:	Reyes Contreras, Maria Isabel, Taborsky, Barbara
Subjects:	500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology) 500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
ISSN:	1471-2954
Publisher:	The Royal Society
Language:	English
Submitter:	Pubmed Import
Date Deposited:	19 May 2022 10:57
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 16:19
Publisher DOI:	10.1098/rspb.2022.0117
PubMed ID:	35582802
Uncontrolled Keywords:	behavioural flexibility cichlid colour discrimination reversal learning social competence stress-axis programming
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/170115