C01: Gene-environment interactions and the role of impulsivity in responding to acute threats: early life stress and escalated aggression in recombinant inbred mouse strains

Sex-dependent effects and gene-environment interactions will be investigated by applying escalating aggression paradigms. Specifically, the project will investigate the effects of early life stress on aggression in response to threat and hyperactivity as well as social decision-making in 32 BXD mouse strains, the progenitor strains (C057Bl/6J and DBA/2J), and the F1 BXD cross. The project aims to identify the quantitative trait loci (QTL) and putative candidate genes contained within the QTL and associate them with specific behavioral responses of stressed and unstressed cohorts of mice. The publicly available database GeneNetwork (www.genenetwork.org) will be used to validate the findings which include measurements of mRNA and protein expression, and methylation patterns in mouse brains