A single brain region can control both social memory and social aggression

Scientists have identified a brain region that helps tell an animal when to attack an intruder and when to accept it into its home. This brain area, called CA2, is part of the hippocampus, a larger brain structure known to be critical for our memory of people, places, things and events. This research was published in Nature.

CA2 was already known to specialize in social memory, the ability to remember encounters with others. Surprisingly, the findings reveal that a single brain region can control both higher-order cognition, like social memory, and an innate, instinctual behavior like social aggression. And because CA2 dysfunction has been implicated in psychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, these results provide further support that altered CA2 function may contribute to abnormal social behaviors associated with such illnesses.

Although a great deal is known about the other regions of the hippocampus, the small size of CA2, coupled with its inaccessible location sandwiched between larger, neighboring areas, make it challenging to study. As a first step to determine whether CA2 may regulate other social behaviors, the researchers examined the brain regions that receive information from CA2. They found that CA2 sends a strong connection to the lateral septum, a brain region that had been known for some time to play an important role in limiting aggression. Indeed, both classic and more recent studies have shown that brain lesions to the lateral septum in several species, including humans, promote a hyper-aggressive state.

To find out, the researchers temporarily turned off CA2 in a mouse living alone in its home cage. They then introduced an intruder into the cage and observed the resulting behavior. When CA2 was switched off, there was a marked decrease in the tendency of the residents to attack, compared to what would normally occur. This difference strongly suggested that CA2 normally acts to drive aggressive behavior, in addition to regulating social memory.

But why would a brain region that controls memory also be used to regulate aggression? One clue comes from the fact that male mice develop a social hierarchy when housed together; a dominant alpha male sits atop this hierarchy, followed by a succession of increasingly submissive males. When a new mouse is introduced into a colony, there are bouts of fights between the stranger and the other mice until the social hierarchy is re-established.

"It appears that, at the beginning of a social interaction -- such as when the resident mouse meets an intruder -- the animal's CA2 forms a social memory, a sort of social ID tag, of the other mouse," the lead author continued. "Further along in the interaction between the two mice, a signal generated in CA2 is sent to the lateral septum, which facilitates aggressive behavior."

A hormone called vasopressin may also be at work, says the research team. When released in the brain, vasopressin regulates a number of social behaviors, so the team asked whether vasopressin might help determine whether a mouse decides to attack.

"We found that the ability of CA2 cells to efficiently activate the lateral septum is greatly enhanced when vasopressin is released in the lateral septum," said the senior author. "Previous research had revealed a link between vasopressin and aggression, and CA2 appears to lie at the center of this effect."

As vasopressin levels are altered in people with schizophrenia and autism, the researchers hope to further explore whether and how such disorders are tied to CA2 dysfunction.

Previously researchers found that mice carrying a human mutation linked to schizophrenia have a dysfunctional CA2. This provided striking evidence that social memory deficits, a key feature of schizophrenia, may have their origins in CA2.

"People with schizophrenia exhibit a wide range of behavioral alterations, including impaired social memory and altered levels of aggression," said the senior author. "Might this result from a loss or change in CA2 activity? And could these deficits be alleviated by artificially boosting CA2 activity? That is something that our research, and that of others, hopes to reveal."