Experience-dependent mechanisms in the regulation of parental care

Abstract

Maternal behavior is a defining characteristic of mammals, which is regulated by a core, conserved neural circuit. However, mothering behavior is not always a default response to infant conspecifics. For example, initial fearful, fragmented or aggressive responses toward infants in laboratory rats and mice can give way to highly motivated and organized caregiving behaviors following appropriate hormone exposure or repeated experience with infants. Therefore hormonal and/or experiential factors must be involved in determining the extent to which infants access central approach and avoidance neural systems. In this review we describe evidence supporting the idea that infant conspecifics are capable of activating distinct neural pathways to elicit avoidant, aggressive and parental responses from adult rodents. Additionally, we discuss the hypothesis that alterations in transcriptional regulation within the medial preoptic area of the hypothalamus may be a key mechanism of neural plasticity involved in programming the differential sensitivity of these neural pathways.

Environmental influences on placental programming and offspring outcomes following maternal immune activation

“…Epigenetic influences likely underlie the observed fetal protection from MIA as they are known to be affected by both maternal care (Zhang et al, 2013;Stolzenberg & Mayer, 2019;Miguel et al, 2019) and EE (Zhang et al, 2018). Moreover, in the placenta, prenatal stress increased transcription of DNMTs and CpG methylation of the Hsd11b2 gene (Jensen Peña et al, 2012).…”

Environmental influences on placental programming and offspring outcomes following maternal immune activation

“…Epigenetic influences likely underlie the observed fetal protection from MIA as they are known to be affected by both maternal care (Zhang et al, 2013;Stolzenberg & Mayer, 2019;Miguel et al, 2019) and EE . Moreover, in the placenta, prenatal stress increased transcription of DNMTs and CpG methylation of the Hsd11b2 gene (Jensen Peña et al, 2012).…”

Precise and pervasive phasic bursting in locus coeruleus during maternal behavior

“…Pup retrieval is one of a suite of maternal behaviors exhibited by mothers and surrogate mice including nest building and maintenance, licking and grooming, crouching, etc. 41 Disruption of NA signaling in pregnant female rodents with neurotoxins, lesions, or genetic manipulation causes severe deficiencies in these behaviors postpartum, leading to pup negligence and elevated mortality 24,42,43 . The relatively extended timeframe for our single unit recordings (40 -90 min) afforded us the opportunity to monitor LC-NA firing patterns during a broader set of maternal behaviors beyond pup retrieval.…”