# The bonding brain: Substrates of social attachment in monogamous voles

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN · 2020 · $680,956

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Social bonds are central to our experience, shaping both our health and happiness. Few of these bonds are as
important to well-being as one’s relationship with a partner. Because social bonds play such an important role
in human lives, studies of neural mechanisms of adult attachments in animal models have a high translational
value. Most commonly used laboratory models, however, do not form strong and enduring attachments. For
this reason, the socially monogamous prairie vole, in which males and females form stable pair-bonds and
raise young together, have become an increasingly important species in social neuroscience. Work on prairie
voles, for example, has revealed how the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin help bring about pair bonds
by modulating the activity of subcortical reward regions. Although vole research has led to human studies that
examine reward circuitry in the context of attachment, most work in human social neuroscience is focused on
how cortical structures contribute to social cognition, an area that is understudied in animal models. Motivated
by this gap between human and animal studies, we propose to develop and apply modern systems
neuroscience tools for the automated and unbiased analyses of brain structure and function in the prairie vole.
Our aim is to comprehensively map the diverse circuits that are modified during pair-bond formation, and to
examine how these circuits are used during the expression of bonds.
 In Aim 1, we will develop a detailed three-dimensional prairie-vole brain atlas, and integrate it into a
computational pipeline for the automated whole-brain imaging of neuronal cell types, long-range projections,
and synaptic densities. We will then use these methods to map structural differences between mouse and
prairie vole brains, between male and female prairie voles, and between bonded and un-bonded voles. In Aim
2, we will use our whole-brain approach to map brain immediate-early gene induction (including c-fos and
alternatives) across a 24h interval of pair-bond formation. We follow this by identifying circuit activity
associated with the selective recognition of a partner, or with the discrimination between a partner and
stranger. These experiments will identify the substrates of bond formation, and will clarify how these brain
regions interact with other circuits during the expression of selective attachment. Finally, in Aim 3, we will
study how one specific cortical region, the retrosplenial cortex (RSC), contributes to the formation and
expression of pair-bonds. This work follows a growing body of data implicating the RSC in long-term memory,
human social cognition and prairie-vole bonding. The study will use AAV-based chemogenetic manipulations of
the RSC to investigate its contribution to whole-brain activity patterns and prairie vole bonding.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9955360
- **Project number:** 5R01MH115267-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
- **Principal Investigator:** Pavel Osten
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $680,956
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-18 → 2022-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9955360

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9955360, The bonding brain: Substrates of social attachment in monogamous voles (5R01MH115267-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9955360. Licensed CC0.

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