ZUOXIN WANGThe mechanism behind prairie voles’ lifelong social monogamy is partly epigenetic, according to a paper published today (June 2) in Nature Neuroscience. Female prairie voles become bonded to their mates for life following the acetylation of histones in a brain region called the nucleus accumbens. The acetylation takes place near the promoter regions of genes encoding oxytocin and vasopressin receptors, molecules that have previously been associated with prairie vole pair-bonding.
“It’s the first time anyone’s shown any epigenetic basis for partner preference,” said Jeremy Day, a neuroepigeneticist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who was not involved in the study.
Mohamed Kabbaj, a neuroscientist at Florida State University and an author of the paper, said that work in other species gave him clues that epigenetics could be important for social behavior. For instance, previous work suggests that modifications are involved in bonds between mothers and offspring in rats.
To test whether acetylation was involved in pair bonding in prairie voles, Kabbaj and colleagues injected trichostatin A (TSA), an inhibitor of histone deacetylases (HDACs), into the prairie voles’ brains. Under ordinary circumstances, sexually naïve prairie voles only mate and form pair bonds after being placed ...
