尾仲 達史

BACKGROUNDS: Social interaction with others is essential to life. Although social isolation and loneliness have been implicated as increased risks of cardiometabolic and cardiovascular diseases and all-cause mortality, the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which social connection maintains cardiometabolic and cardiovascular health remain largely unresolved. METHODS: To investigate how social connection protects against cardiometabolic and cardiovascular diseases, atherosclerosis-prone, high-fat diet-fed Apoe-/- mouse siblings were randomly assigned to either individual or grouped housing for 12 weeks. Histological, flow cytometric, biochemical, gene, and protein analyses were performed to assess atherosclerotic lesions, systemic metabolism, inflammation, and stress response. The effects of oxytocin on hepatocytes and subsequent cardiometabolic and cardiovascular function were investigated by in vivo and in vitro approaches. RESULTS: Apoe-/- mice housed individually developed larger vulnerable atherosclerotic lesions by disrupted lipid metabolism compared with those of mice in regular group housing, irrespective of body weight, eating behavior, feeding conditions, sympathetic nervous activity, glucocorticoid response, or systemic inflammation. Mechanistically, the chronic isolation reduced the hypothalamic production of oxytocin, which controls bile acid production and LPL (lipoprotein lipase) activity through the peripheral OXTR (oxytocin receptor) in hepatocytes, whose downstream targets include Cyp7a1, Angptl4, and Angptl8. While hepatocyte-specific OXTR-null mice and mice receiving adeno-associated virus targeting OXTR on hepatocytes led to severe dyslipidemia and aggravated atherosclerosis, oral oxytocin supplementation to socially isolated mice, but not to hepatocyte-specific OXTR conditional knockout mice, improved lipid profiles and retarded atherosclerosis development. CONCLUSIONS: These results identify a novel brain-liver axis that links sociality to hepatic lipid metabolism, thus proposing a potential therapeutic strategy for loneliness-associated atherosclerosis progression.

BACKGROUND: The flexibility to adjust actions and attitudes in response to varying social situations is a fundamental aspect of adaptive social behavior. Adaptive social behaviors influence an individual's vulnerability to social stress. While oxytocin has been proposed to facilitate active coping behaviors during social stress, the exact mechanisms remain unknown. METHODS: By using a social defeat stress paradigm in male mice, we identified the distribution of oxytocin receptor (OXTR)-expressing neurons in the ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus (vlVMH) that are activated during stress by detection of c-Fos protein expression. We then investigated the role of vlVMH OXTR-expressing neurons in social defeat stress responses by chemogenetic methods or deletion of local OXTRs. The social defeat posture was measured for quantification of adaptive social behavior during repeated social stress. RESULTS: Social defeat stress activated OXTR-expressing neurons rather than estrogen type 1-expressing neurons in the rostral vlVMH. OXTR-expressing neurons in the vlVMH were glutamatergic. Chemogenetic activation of vlVMH OXTR-expressing neurons facilitated exhibition of the social defeat posture during exposure to social stress, while local OXTR deletion suppressed it. In contrast, over-activation of vlVMH-OXTR neurons induced generalized social avoidance after exposure to chronic social defeat stress. Neural circuits for the social defeat posture centered on OXTR-expressing neurons were identified by viral tracers and c-Fos mapping. CONCLUSIONS: VlVMH OXTR-expressing neurons are a functionally unique population of neurons that promote an active coping behavior during social stress, but their excessive and repetitive activation under chronic social stress impairs subsequent social behavior.

Rodent ultrasonic vocalisations can be used to assess social behaviour and have attracted increasing attention. Rats emit 50-kHz and 22-kHz calls during appetitive and aversive states, respectively. These calls induce behavioural and neural responses in the receiver by transmitting the internal states of the rats, thus serving communicative functions. Recently, we discovered that female Lewis rats emit 31-kHz calls under social isolation and inequality conditions; however, the biological significance of 31-kHz calls remains unknown. In the present study, we conducted three playback experiments to examine the behavioural effects of 31-kHz calls. In the first experiment, Lewis female rats were exposed to four types of sound: 22-kHz, 50-kHz, 31-kHz calls, and environmental noise. As a result, rats stayed significantly longer in the area with a sound-producing speaker, regardless of the sound type, than in the silent speaker area. The duration spent around the sound-producing speaker was particularly extended during the 50-kHz or 31-kHz call playback, compared to the environmental noise or 22-kHz call playback. In the second experiment, rats were exposed to refined versions of sound stimuli that were synthesised to preserve prominent frequency components while removing background noise from original calls. Rats significantly preferred to stay around the speaker for the synthesised 50-kHz and 31-kHz sounds, but not for the synthesised 22-kHz sound. However, in the third experiment, additional 31-kHz sound synthesised from calls emitted by a different rat did not elicit a significant preference for the source side. These results suggest that the rats paid attention to the 31-kHz call, although it is plausible that acoustic variability in the 31-kHz USV may affect their approach behaviour.

Parental behavior comprises a set of crucial actions essential for offspring survival. In this study, a double transgenic mouse model engineered to specifically express channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) in paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus (PVN)–oxytocin neurons and ablate lateral hypothalamic area (LHA)–melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) neurons was used to determine the relationship between PVN–oxytocin neurons and LHA–MCH neurons associated with parental behavior. Optogenetic stimulation of ChR2-expressing PVN–oxytocin neurons induces typical parental behavior with intact LHA–MCH neurons. However, after the partial ablation of LHA–MCH neurons, even optogenetic stimulation of PVN–oxytocin neurons failed to induce parental behavior in virgin male mice, resulting in neglect rather than parental behavior. Furthermore, approximately half of the subjects exhibited burying behavior toward pups, suggesting that pups became aversive stimuli, and male mice actively performed burying behavior to avoid these aversive stimuli. This study emphasizes the novel aspect of oxytocin neurons that could result in neglect in the absence of LHA–MCH neurons regulation.