Beiderbeck Daniela I, Lukas Michael, Neumann Inga D
Department of Behavioral and Molecular Neurobiology, University of Regensburg Regensburg, Germany.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2014 May 30;8:185. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00185. eCollection 2014.
Neuropeptide S (NPS) exerts robust anxiolytic and memory enhancing effects, but only in a non-social context. In order to study whether NPS affects aggressive behavior we used Wistar rats bred for low (LAB) and high (HAB) levels of innate anxiety-related behavior, respectively, which were both described to display increased levels of aggression compared with Wistar rats not selectively bred for anxiety (NAB). Male LAB, HAB, and NAB rats were tested for aggressive behavior toward a male intruder rat within their home cage (10 min, resident-intruder [RI] test). Intracerebroventricular (icv) infusion of NPS (1 nmol) significantly reduced inter-male aggression in LAB rats, and tended to reduce aggression in HAB and NAB males. However, local infusion of NPS (0.2 or 0.1 nmol NPS) into either the nucleus accumbens or the lateral hypothalamus did not influence aggressive behavior. Social investigation in the RI test and general social motivation assessed in the social preference paradigm were not altered by icv NPS (1 nmol). The anti-aggressive effect of NPS is most likely not causally linked to its anxiolytic properties, as intraperitoneal administration of the anxiogenic drug pentylenetetrazole decreased aggression in LAB rats whereas the anxiolytic drug diazepam did not affect aggression in HAB rats. Thus, although NPS has so far only been shown to exert effects on non-social behaviors, our results are the first demonstration of anti-aggressive effects of NPS in male rats.
神经肽S（NPS）具有强大的抗焦虑和增强记忆作用，但仅在非社交情境中如此。为了研究NPS是否影响攻击行为，我们分别使用了因先天焦虑相关行为水平低（LAB）和高（HAB）而培育的Wistar大鼠，据描述，与未经过焦虑选择性培育的Wistar大鼠（NAB）相比，这两种大鼠的攻击水平均有所提高。对雄性LAB、HAB和NAB大鼠在其家笼内对雄性入侵者大鼠的攻击行为进行测试（10分钟，居住者-入侵者[RI]测试）。脑室内（icv）注入NPS（1纳摩尔）可显著降低LAB大鼠的雄性间攻击行为，并倾向于降低HAB和NAB雄性大鼠的攻击行为。然而，向伏隔核或下丘脑外侧局部注入NPS（0.2或0.1纳摩尔NPS）并不影响攻击行为。icv注入NPS（1纳摩尔）不会改变RI测试中的社交调查以及社交偏好范式中评估的一般社交动机。NPS的抗攻击作用很可能与其抗焦虑特性没有因果关系，因为腹腔注射致焦虑药物戊四氮可降低LAB大鼠的攻击行为，而抗焦虑药物地西泮对HAB大鼠的攻击行为没有影响。因此，尽管迄今为止NPS仅被证明对非社交行为有影响，但我们的结果首次证明了NPS对雄性大鼠具有抗攻击作用。
