Division of Behavioural Ecology, Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Wohlenstrasse 50A, CH-3032 Hinterkappelen, Switzerland.
Proc Biol Sci. 2022 May 25;289(1975):20220117. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0117. Epub 2022 May 18.
The ability to flexibly adjust behaviour to social and non-social challenges is important for successfully navigating variable environments. Social competence, i.e. adaptive behavioural flexibility in the social domain, allows individuals to optimize their expression of social behaviour. Behavioural flexibility outside the social domain aids in coping with ecological challenges. However, it is unknown if social and non-social behavioural flexibility share common underlying cognitive mechanisms. Support for such shared mechanism would be provided if the same neural mechanisms in the brain affected social and non-social behavioural flexibility similarly. We used individuals of the cooperatively breeding fish that had undergone early-life programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-interrenal axis by exposure to (i) cortisol, (ii) the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist mifepristone, or (iii) control treatments, and where effects of stress-axis programming on social flexibility occurred. One year after the treatments, adults learned a colour discrimination task and subsequently, a reversal-learning task testing for behavioural flexibility. Early-life mifepristone treatment marginally enhanced learning performance, whereas cortisol treatment significantly reduced behavioural flexibility. Thus, early-life cortisol treatment reduced both social and non-social behavioural flexibility, suggesting a shared cognitive basis of behavioural flexibility. Further our findings imply that early-life stress programming affects the ability of organisms to flexibly cope with environmental stressors.
灵活调整行为以应对社会和非社会挑战的能力对于成功应对多变的环境非常重要。社会能力，即社会领域中适应性行为的灵活性，使个体能够优化其社交行为的表达。非社会领域的行为灵活性有助于应对生态挑战。然而，目前尚不清楚社会和非社会行为灵活性是否具有共同的潜在认知机制。如果大脑中的相同神经机制以相似的方式影响社会和非社会行为灵活性，那么这将为存在共同机制提供支持。我们使用经历了下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴早期生活编程的合作繁殖鱼类个体，这些个体通过暴露于（i）皮质醇、（ii）糖皮质激素受体拮抗剂米非司酮或（iii）对照处理而受到影响，并且在应激轴编程对社会灵活性的影响发生的情况下。在治疗一年后，成年人学习了颜色辨别任务，然后进行了行为灵活性的反转学习任务。早期米非司酮治疗略微提高了学习成绩，而皮质醇治疗则显著降低了行为灵活性。因此，早期皮质醇治疗降低了社会和非社会行为灵活性，表明行为灵活性具有共同的认知基础。此外，我们的研究结果表明，早期生活应激编程会影响生物体灵活应对环境应激源的能力。
