Brain areas important for social perception, social reward, and social behavior – collectively referred to as the social-decision-making network (SDN) – appear to be highly conserved across taxa. These brain areas facilitate a variety of social behaviors such as conspecific approach/avoidance, aggression, mating, parental care, and recognition. Although the SDN has been investigated across taxa, little is known about its functioning in reptiles. Research on the snake SDN may provide important new insights, as snakes have a keen social perceptual system and express a relatively reduced repertoire of social behaviors. Here, we present the results of an experiment in which ball pythons () interacted with a same-sex conspecific for one hour and neural activation was investigated through Fos immunoreactivity. Compared to controls, snakes that interacted socially had higher Fos counts in brain areas implicated in social behavior across taxa, such as the medial amygdala, preoptic area, nucleus accumbens, and basolateral amygdala. Additionally, we found differential Fos immunoreactivity in the ventral amygdala, which facilitates communication between social brain areas. In many of these areas, Fos counts differed by sex, which may be due to increased competition between males. Fos counts did not differ in early sensory (i.e., vomeronasal) processing structures. As ball python social systems lack parental care, cooperation, or long-term group living, these results provide valuable insight into the basal functions of the vertebrate social decision-making network.

中文翻译：

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蛇社会决策网络中的社会介导激活

对社会感知、社会奖励和社会行为很重要的大脑区域——统称为社会决策网络（SDN）——似乎在整个分类群中高度保守。这些大脑区域促进各种社会行为，例如同种接近/回避、攻击性、交配、父母照顾和认可。尽管 SDN 已在各个分类群中进行了研究，但对其在爬行动物中的功能知之甚少。对蛇 SDN 的研究可能会提供重要的新见解，因为蛇具有敏锐的社会感知系统，并且表达的社会行为相对较少。在这里，我们展示了一项实验结果，其中球蟒 () 与同性同种动物相互作用一小时，并通过 Fos 免疫反应性研究神经激活。与对照组相比，进行社交互动的蛇在涉及跨类群社会行为的大脑区域（例如内侧杏仁核、视前区、伏核和基底外侧杏仁核）中具有更高的 Fos 计数。此外，我们在腹侧杏仁核中发现了不同的 Fos 免疫反应性，这促进了大脑社交区域之间的沟通。在许多这些领域，Fos 计数因性别而异，这可能是由于雄性之间的竞争加剧所致。 Fos 计数在早期感觉（即犁鼻）处理结构中没有差异。由于球蟒的社会系统缺乏父母的照顾、合作或长期的群体生活，这些结果为了解脊椎动物社会决策网络的基本功能提供了有价值的见解。