Social complexity during early development has long-term effects on neuroplasticity in the social decision-making network

In social species, early social experience shapes the development of appropriate social behaviours during conspecific interactions referred to as social competence. However, the underlying neuronal mechanisms responsible for the acquisition of social competence are largely unknown. One key candidate to influence social competence is neuroplasticity, which functions to restructure neural networks in response to novel experiences or alterations of the environment. One important mediator of this restructuring is the neurotrophin BDNF, which is well conserved among vertebrates. We studied the highly social fish Neolamprologus pulcher, in which the impact of early social experience on social competence has been previously shown. We investigated experimentally how variation of the early social environment impacts markers of neuroplasticity by analysing the relative expression of the bdnf gene and its receptors p75NTR and TrkB across nodes of the Social Decision-Making Network. In fish raised ..., , , # Social complexity during early development has long-term effects on neuroplasticity in the social decision-making network

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kkwh70sd0](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.kkwh70sd0)

## Description of the data and file structure

The data was collected from qPCR analysis of fish brain regions (ATN, DL, POA, TPP). We targeted 3 genes, *bdnf*, p75NTR and TrkB as well as 18S as a housekeeping gene. All missing data represented as NA.

### Files and variables

#### File: data_genexp_all_final.xlsx

##### Variables

* Sample: sample ID
* brain_area: Brain area collected: anterior tuberal nucleus (ATN), lateral zone of the dorsal telencephalic area (DL), preoptic area (POA), posterior tuberculum (TPP)
* fish_ID: Individual fish ID
* age_at_sampling: Age the fish were at sampling (in years)
* treatment: Early life treatment: raised in small (S) or large (L) groups of fish
* Sex: Sex of the fish: male (M), female (F) or unknown (U)
* familyID: ID of the family where t...,