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April 23rd, 2025
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Department of Biology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
animal behavior and cognition
biorxiv

Social Context Restructures Behavioral Syntax in Mice

Ritter, M.Open in Google Scholar•Shipley, H.Open in Google Scholar•Deiana, S.Open in Google Scholar•Hengerer, B.Open in Google Scholar•Wotjak, C. T.Open in Google Scholar•Brecht, M.Open in Google Scholar•Bogadhi, A. R.Open in Google Scholar

Investigation of social behavior in mice is increasingly relevant to understand associated brain circuits and thereby treating psychiatric symptoms involving social withdrawal or social anxiety. A data-driven description of behavior and its modulation by solitary and social context is lacking. In this study, we asked if and how the behavioral repertoire of mice differs in solitary and social ("dyadic") context through behavioral decomposition ("Syllables") using motion sequencing ("MoSeq"). Our results reveal a significant modulation in a minority (25%) of syllables, containing mostly stationary and undirected behaviors, by social context. However, the modulation is associated with spatial proximity to the conspecific rather than active contact. Interestingly, a network analysis of syllable transitions shows that modulated syllables play a regulatory role with significant changes in network influence, independent of the number of connected syllables. Furthermore, we found significant changes to syllable composition at the time of mice contact behavior and identified two families of syllable sequences that dominate mice approach or leave behaviors. However, we did not identify unique sequences of syllables that map onto specific mice social behaviors. Overall, our findings suggest that a subset of syllables underlie the changes in the behavioral composition of mice under social context and may mediate transitions within the behavioral repertoire.

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