Acute social isolation alters neurogenomic state in songbird forebrain
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Prolonged social isolation has negative effects on brain and behavior in humans and other social organisms, but neural mechanisms leading to these effects are not understood. Here we tested the hypothesis that even brief periods of social isolation can alter gene expression and DNA methylation in higher cognitive centers of the brain, focusing on the auditory/associative forebrain of the highly social zebra finch. Using RNA sequencing, we first identified genes that individually increase or decrease expression after isolation and observed general repression of gene sets annotated for neurotrophin pathways and axonal guidance functions. We then pursued 4 genes of large effect size: EGR1 and BDNF (decreased by isolation) and FKBP5 and UTS2B (increased). By in situ hybridization, each gene responded in different cell subsets, arguing against a single cellular mechanism. To test whether effects were specific to the social component of the isolation experience, we compared gene expression in birds isolated either alone or with a single familiar partner. Partner inclusion ameliorated the effect of solo isolation on EGR1 and BDNF, but not on FKBP5 and UTS2B nor on circulating corticosterone. By bisulfite sequencing analysis of auditory forebrain DNA, isolation caused changes in methylation of a subset of differentially expressed genes, including BDNF. Thus, social isolation has rapid consequences on gene activity in a higher integrative center of the brain, triggering epigenetic mechanisms that may influence processing of ongoing experience.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".