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Social behavior

Control of social hierarchy beyond neurons

Nature Neuroscience volume 26, pages 1485–1486 (2023)Cite this article

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Noh et al. show that the regulation of social behavior extends beyond neurons. Astrocytes, a major type of glial cell in the CNS, can influence social dominance behavior by modulating excitatory and inhibitory neural activities in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex of adult male mice. This work highlights the importance of neuron–astrocyte interplay in controlling ethologically relevant behaviors.

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Fig. 1: Astrocytes in the dmPFC modulate social rank and dominance in male mice through bidirectional modulation of synaptic excitatory/inhibitory balance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Nguyen T. Phi & Weizhe Hong

  2. Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Nguyen T. Phi & Weizhe Hong

  3. Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Xinzhu Yu

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  1. Nguyen T. Phi
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  2. Xinzhu Yu
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Correspondence to Weizhe Hong.

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Phi, N.T., Yu, X. & Hong, W. Control of social hierarchy beyond neurons. Nat Neurosci 26, 1485–1486 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-023-01392-7

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