Oxytocin Neurons Enable Social Transmission of Maternal Behavior

Abstract
Maternal care is profoundly important for mammalian survival, and maternal behaviors can also be expressed by non-biological parents after experience with infants. One critical molecular signal for maternal behavior is oxytocin, a hormone released in the brain by hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN). Oxytocin enables plasticity within the auditory cortex, a necessary step for responding to infant vocalizations. To determine how this change occurs during natural experience, we continuously monitored homecage behavior of female virgin mice co-housed for days with an experienced mother and litter, synchronized with in vivo recordings from virgin PVN cells, including from identified oxytocin neurons. Mothers engaged virgins in maternal care by ensuring that virgins were in the nest, and demonstrated maternal behavior in self-generated pup retrieval episodes. These social interactions activated virgin PVN and gated behaviorally-relevant cortical plasticity for pup distress calls. Thus rodent maternal behavior can be learned by social transmission, and our results describe a mechanism for adapting the brains of adult caregivers to infant needs via endogenous oxytocin.
One Sentence Summary Mother mice help co-housed virgins become maternal by enacting specific behaviors that activate virgin oxytocin neurons.
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