Using seasonality and birdsong to understand mechanisms underlying context-appropriate shifts in social motivation and reward

LV Riters, SA Stevenson - Hormones and behavior, 2022 - Elsevier
Social motivation and reward are dynamic and flexible, shifting adaptively across contexts to
meet changing social demands. This is exceptionally apparent when seasonal contexts are …

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 …

C Zhao, LV Riters - Behavioral Neuroscience, 2023 - psycnet.apa.org
The medial preoptic area (MPOA) is well known for its role in sexual and maternal
behaviors. This region also plays an important role in affiliative social behaviors outside …

Mu opioid receptors in the medial preoptic area govern social play behavior in adolescent male rats

C Zhao, L Chang, AP Auger… - Genes, Brain and …, 2020 - Wiley Online Library
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 …

Evidence that flocking behavior is rewarded by singing, flock mates, and mu opioid receptors in the nucleus accumbens

AN Maksimoski, TA Levenson, C Zhao, LV Riters - PloS one, 2025 - journals.plos.org
It has been proposed that social groups are maintained both by reward resulting from
positive social interactions and by the reduction of a negative state that would otherwise be …

Co-localization of mu-opioid and dopamine D1 receptors in the medial preoptic area and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis across seasonal states in male European …

JA Spool, DP Merullo, C Zhao, LV Riters - Hormones and behavior, 2019 - Elsevier
In seasonally breeding animals, changes in photoperiod and sex-steroid hormones may
modify sexual behavior in part by altering the activity of neuromodulators, including opioids …

In vivo imaging of D2 receptors and corticosteroids predict behavioural responses to captivity stress in a wild bird

CR Lattin, DP Merullo, LV Riters, RE Carson - Scientific reports, 2019 - nature.com
Individual physiological variation may underlie individual differences in behaviour in
response to stressors. This study tested the hypothesis that individual variation in dopamine …

Brain Distribution and Sexually Dimorphic Expression of Amylin in Different Reproductive Stages of the Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia guttata) Suggest Roles of the …

G Zachar, C Montagnese, EA Fazekas… - Frontiers in …, 2020 - frontiersin.org
The expression of the recently identified neuropeptide, amylin, is restricted in rodents to the
postpartum preoptic area and may play a role in the control of parental behaviours and food …

Distribution of dopamine-immunoreactive neurons in the brain of the male native Thai chicken

B Kamkrathok, Y Chaiseha - Folia Histochemica et …, 2022 - journals.viamedica.pl
Introduction. Dopamine (DA) is a neurotransmitter/neuromodulator found in both central and
peripheral nervous systems. It plays several physiological functions in some mammalian …

[BOOK][B] Contributions of Critical Breeding Resources and Sex Steroid Hormones to Fine-Tuning Social Behavior, Physiology, and Neural Systems in Seasonally …

JA Spool - 2018 - search.proquest.com
Animals depend on limited environmental resources to breed successfully. It is thought that
limited environmental resources may modify social and sexual behavior to fine-tune the …