Highly structured, partner-sex- and subject-sex-dependent cortical responses during social facial touch

• Published in: Nature communications 2019-10, Vol.10 (1), p.4634-16, Article 4634
• Main Authors: Ebbesen, Christian L., Bobrov, Evgeny, Rao, Rajnish P., Brecht, Michael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/378/2620/2618; 631/378/2620/2622; 64/86; 9/30; 9/97; Animals; Behavior, Animal; Computer simulation; Female; Females; Firing pattern; Humanities and Social Sciences; Male; multidisciplinary; Nerve Net; Neural networks; Parental behavior; Population; Population Dynamics; Rats; Regression Analysis; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sex; Sex Factors; Sexes; Sexual behavior; Social Behavior; Somatosensory Cortex - physiology; Tactile stimuli; Touch; Touch - physiology; Vibrissae - physiology
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12511-z

Touch is a fundamental aspect of social, parental and sexual behavior. In contrast to our detailed knowledge about cortical processing of non-social touch, we still know little about how social touch impacts cortical circuits. We investigated neural activity across five frontal, motor and sensory cortical areas in rats engaging in naturalistic social facial touch. Information about social touch and the sex of the interaction partner (a biologically significant feature) is a major determinant of cortical activity. 25.3% of units were modulated during social touch and 8.3% of units displayed ‘sex-touch’ responses (responded differently, depending on the sex of the interaction partner). Single-unit responses were part of a structured, partner-sex- and, in some cases, subject-sex-dependent population response. Spiking neural network simulations indicate that a change in inhibitory drive might underlie these population dynamics. Our observations suggest that socio-sexual characteristics of touch (subject and partner sex) widely modulate cortical activity and need to be investigated with cellular resolution. Touch is an important sensory modality during social encounters. Here the authors report that during naturalistic social encounters in rats, the cortical activity in widespread areas at the level of single neurons is modulated by sociosexual characteristics such as the subject and partner sex.