Neural substrates for regulating self-grooming behavior in rodents

LI GUANQING; LU CHANYI; YIN MIAOMIAO; WANG PENG; ZHANG PENGBO; WU JIALIANG; WANG WENQIANG; WANG DING; WANG MENGYUE; LIU JIAHAN; LIN XINGHAN; ZHANG JIAN-XU; WANG ZHENSHAN; YU YIQUN; ZHANG YUN-FENG

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Neural substrates for regulating self-grooming behavior in rodents

Author: LI GUANQING ^{1
,

2
,

3} ; LU CHANYI ; YIN MIAOMIAO ; WANG PENG ; ZHANG PENGBO ; WU JIALIANG ; WANG WENQIANG ; WANG DING ; WANG MENGYUE ; LIU JIAHAN ; LIN XINGHAN ; ZHANG JIAN-XU ; WANG ZHENSHAN ; YU YIQUN ; ZHANG YUN-FENG
Author Information

1. State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents,Institute of Zoology,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100101,China
2. CAS Center for Excellence in Biotic Interactions,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100101,China
3. School of Life Sciences,Hebei University,Baoding 071002,China
Keywords: Grooming; Repetitive behavior; Syntactic chain; Cephalocaudal progression; Neuropsychiatric disorders
From: Journal of Zhejiang University. Science. B 2024;25(10):841-856
CountryChina
Language:Chinese
Abstract: Grooming,as an evolutionarily conserved repetitive behavior,is common in various animals,including humans,and serves essential functions including,but not limited to,hygiene maintenance,thermoregulation,de-arousal,stress reduction,and social behaviors.In rodents,grooming involves a patterned and sequenced structure,known as the syntactic chain with four phases that comprise repeated stereotyped movements happening in a cephalocaudal progression style,beginning from the nose to the face,to the head,and finally ending with body licking.The context-dependent occurrence of grooming behavior indicates its adaptive significance.This review briefly summarizes the neural substrates responsible for rodent grooming behavior and explores its relevance in rodent models of neuropsychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative diseases with aberrant grooming phenotypes.We further emphasize the utility of rodent grooming as a reliable measure of repetitive behavior in neuropsychiatric models,holding promise for translational psychiatry.Herein,we mainly focus on rodent self-grooming.Allogrooming(grooming being applied on one animal by its conspecifics via licking or carefully nibbling)and heterogrooming(a form of grooming behavior directing towards another animal,which occurs in other contexts,such as maternal,sexual,aggressive,or social behaviors)are not covered due to space constraints.