Nathaniel S Rieger

Boston College | BC · Psychology Department

The ability to detect, appraise, and respond to another’s emotional state is essential to social affective behavior. This is mediated by a network of brain regions responsible for integrating external cues with internal states to orchestrate situationally appropriate behavioral responses. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and the insular cortex are re...

Monogamous, pair-bonded animals coordinate intra-pair behavior for spatially separated challenges including territorial defense and nest attendance. Paired California mice, a monogamous, territorial and biparental species, approach intruders together or separately, but often express behavioral convergence across intruder challenges. To gain a more...

The ability to detect, appraise, and respond to another’s emotional state is essential to social affective behavior. This is mediated by a network of brain regions responsible for integrating external cues with internal states to orchestrate situationally appropriate behavioral responses. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) and the insular cortex are re...

Prenatal infection increases risk for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism in offspring. In rodents, prenatal administration of the viral mimic Polyinosinic: polycytidylic acid (Poly I: C) allows for investigation of developmental consequences of gestational sickness on offspring social behavior and neural circuit function. Because maternal...

Vocalizations, chemosignals, and behaviors are influenced by one’s internal affective state and are used by others to shape social behaviors. A network of interconnected brain structures, often called the social behavior network or social decision-making network, integrates these stimuli and coordinates social behaviors, and in-network connectivity...

Prenatal infection increases risk for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism in offspring. In the rodents, prenatal administration of the viral mimic Polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (Poly I:C) allows for investigation of developmental consequences of gestational sickness on offspring social behavior and neural circuit function. Because materna...

Exploration into the biological bases of aggression has demonstrated the existence of many forms of aggression. Here we investigate the neuroendocrine bases of these types of aggression in rodents. With this, a new emphasis on appetitive and consummatory aggression, and how this framework illuminates our understanding of human aggression, is review...

Impairments in identifying and responding to the emotions of others manifest in a variety of psychopathologies. Therefore, elaborating the neurobiological mechanisms that underpin social responses to social emotions, or social affective behavior, is a translationally important goal. The insular cortex is consistently implicated in stress-related so...

Coordinated responses to challenge are essential to survival for bonded monogamous animals and may depend on behavioral compatibility. Oxytocin (OT) context-dependently regulates social affiliation and vocal communication, but its role in pair members’ decision to jointly respond to challenge is unclear. To test for OT effects, California mouse fem...

Pair-bonding allows for division of labor across behavioral tasks such as protecting a territory, caring for pups or foraging for food. However, how these labor divisions are determined, whether they are simply intrinsic differences in the individual’s behavior or a coordinated behavioral response by the pair, remains unknown. We used the monogamou...

Avoidance of sick individuals is vital to the preservation of one’s health and preventing transmission of communicable diseases. To do this successfully, one must identify social cues for sickness, which include sickness behaviors and chemosignals, and use this information to orchestrate social interactions. While many social species are highly cap...

Impairments in social cognition manifest in a variety of psychiatric disorders, making the neurobiological mechanisms underlying social decision making of particular translational importance. The insular cortex is consistently implicated in stress-related social and anxiety disorders, which are associated with diminished ability to make and use inf...

Social context is critical in shaping behavioral responses to stimuli and can alter an individual's behavioral type, which would otherwise be fixed in social isolation. For monogamous biparental vertebrates, social context is critical as interactions are frequent and consistent, involving high interindividual dependence and cooperation that can lea...

Keywords: aggression coordination division of labour monogamy parental care pup retrieval territoriality ultrasonic vocalizations Division of labour allows group-living species to efficiently complete tasks while minimizing resource expenditure. This generally involves task allocation between individuals. In territorial defence and parental care sp...

Acoustic communication is vital to complex social behaviours such as territorial defence. The use of ultrasonic vocalizations, particularly in territorial defence by monogamous species and females, remains understudied. We studied ultrasonic vocalization production and associated aggression in the monogamous, biparental and territorial California m...