Department of Psychology, Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA.
Behavioral Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA.
Dev Psychobiol. 2020 Sep;62(6):749-757. doi: 10.1002/dev.21962. Epub 2020 Mar 1.
During infection, sickness behaviors, such as a hunched stance with piloerection, can facilitate host resistance by supporting the generation and maintenance of fever. Fever, in turn, is mediated by hypothalamic neuroimmune signaling. Sickness behaviors, however, can also be influenced by social stimuli. In this study, guinea pig pups were injected with lipopolysaccharide to simulate a bacterial infection and then exposed to a novel, threatening environment while either with their mother or alone. We found that the presence of the mother suppressed sickness behavior, but enhanced fever, and had no measureable effect on gene expression of hypothalamic mediators of fever. This 3-way dissociation induced by the mother's presence is interpreted in terms of the differential adaptive consequences of behavioral and febrile responses for pups in this situation. The results contribute to a growing literature linking immunological and social processes.
在感染期间，疾病行为，如毛发竖立的蜷缩姿势，可以通过支持发热的产生和维持来帮助宿主抵抗。发热反过来又受到下丘脑神经免疫信号的调节。然而，疾病行为也可能受到社会刺激的影响。在这项研究中，豚鼠幼崽被注射脂多糖以模拟细菌感染，然后在与母亲在一起或独处的情况下暴露于新的、威胁性的环境中。我们发现母亲的存在抑制了疾病行为，但增强了发热，并且对发热的下丘脑介质的基因表达没有可衡量的影响。这种由母亲存在引起的三向分离，根据行为和发热反应对这种情况下幼崽的不同适应后果进行解释。这些结果有助于将免疫学和社会过程联系起来的文献不断增加。
