Episode 124: Spiny, but social (with Aubrey Kelly)

What are spiny mice and why are they so social? What about their brains makes them gregarious? Might network neuroscience be a useful framework for understanding spiny mice behavior? On this episode, we talk with Aubrey Kelly, an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Emory University. Aubrey is a behavioral neuroscientist working on many vertebrate species, mostly in regards to their social behaviors. In our conversation with her, we focus on one of her main study species, the spiny mouse. Spiny mice have been found in groups of over sixty in the wild, and individual mice have “best friends,” another mouse they prefer to spend time with. Aubrey talks about the neural and hormonal underpinnings of their social behavior and her growing interests in network neuroscience. This episode was supported by a grant to Aubrey from the National Science Foundation. Cover photo: Keating Shahmehri