Social creatures : model animal systems for studying the neuroendocrine mechanisms of social behaviour

Work was supported by grants awarded to ML (BBSRC BB/S000224/1), OJB (BO 1958/8-2, GRK 2174), KEB (Wellcome Trust 109614/Z/15/Z, MRC MR/N004574/1), AJ (BBSRC BB/S000801) and GL (Israel Science Foundation #1511/16; United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation #2017325; Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases, Richard F. Goodman Yale/Weizmann Exchange Program and Estate of Emile Mimran).The interaction of animals with conspecifics, termed social behaviour, has a major impact on the survival of many vertebrate species. Neuropeptide hormones modulate the underlying physiology that governs social interactions, and many findings concerning the neuroendocrine mechanisms of social behaviours have been extrapolated from animal models to humans. Neurones expressing neuropeptides show similar distribution patterns within the hypothalamic nucleus, even when evolutionarily distant species are compared. During evolution, hypothalamic neuropeptides and releasing hormones have retained not only their structures, but also their biological functions, including their effects on behaviour. Here, we review the current understanding of the mechanisms of social behaviours in several classes of animals, such as worms, insects and fish, as well as laboratory, wild and domesticated mammals.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe