Fig. 3
Oxtr distribution in dopamine receptor cell classes does not vary based on sociosexual experience. (A) Experimental timeline for pairing and behavioral test for paired prairie and meadow vole cohorts. (B, C) A partner preference test confirmed pair bond formation in prairie voles, but not meadow voles. Male and female prairie voles, and male meadow voles more time spent in social chambers compared to female meadow voles. Solid gray triangles and circles indicate animals used in in situ experiments. (D, E) Representative images demonstrating co-labeling of Oxtr with Drd1, or Drd2, or both Drd1 and Drd2 in the nucleus accumbens core occurs in all cohorts: sexually naïve prairie voles (D: top row), pairbonded prairie voles (D: bottom row), sexually naïve meadow voles (E: top row) and paired meadow voles (E: bottom row). Image inset represents 40× image with 4× zoom. Scale bar = 50 μm. (F, G) Prairie and meadow voles showed a main effect of cell class but no main effect of bond status on the percentage of cells with Oxtr across dopamine receptor cell class, indicating that this metric is not influenced by sociosexual experience but does scale as a function of cell dopamine receptor identity in both species. (H, I) The number of Oxtr puncta was counted, and the frequency of puncta number was calculated in each dopamine receptor cell class. Naïve prairie voles had a greater puncta density in Drd1 + Drd2 cells compared to Drd1 cells (H: left). Pairbonded prairie voles had a greater puncta density in Drd1 + Drd2 cells compared to all other dopamine receptor cell classes (H: right). Naïve meadow voles (I: left) and paired meadow voles (I: right) had no statistically significant differences in Oxtr puncta frequency across dopamine receptor cell classes. Error bars show SEM. n = 4–8 per group. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001.
