Oxytocin and Parental Behaviors
- 16 August 2017
- book chapter
- review article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC
- Vol. 35, 119-153
- https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2017_11
Abstract
The oxytocin/vasopressin ancestor molecule has been regulating reproductive and social behaviors for more than 500 million years. In all mammals, oxytocin is the hormone indispensable for milk-ejection during nursing (maternal milk provision to offspring), a process that is crucial for successful mammalian parental care. In laboratory mice, a remarkable transcriptional activation occurs during parental behavior within the anterior commissural nucleus (AC), the largest magnocellular oxytocin cell population within the medial preoptic area (although the transcriptional activation was limited to non-oxytocinergic neurons in the AC). Furthermore, there are numerous recent reports on oxytocin’s involvement in positive social behaviors in animals and humans. Given all those, the essential involvement of oxytocin in maternal/parental behaviors may seem obvious, but basic researchers are still struggling to pin down the exact role oxytocin plays in the regulation of parental behaviors. A major aim of this review is to more clearly define this role. The best conclusion at this moment is that OT can facilitate the onset of parental behavior, or parental behavior under stressful conditions. In this chapter, we will first review the basics of rodent parental behavior. Next, the neuroanatomy of oxytocin systems with respect to parental behavior in laboratory mice will be introduced. Then, the research history on the functional relationship between oxytocin and parental behavior, along with advancements in various techniques, will be reviewed. Finally, some technical considerations in conducting behavioral experiments on parental behavior in rodents will be addressed, with the aim of shedding light on certain pitfalls that should be avoided, so that the progress of research in this field will be facilitated. In this age of populism, researchers should strive to do even more scholarly works with further attention to methodological details.Keywords
This publication has 100 references indexed in Scilit:
- Social reward requires coordinated activity of nucleus accumbens oxytocin and serotoninNature, 2013
- Oxytocin enhances hippocampal spike transmission by modulating fast-spiking interneuronsNature, 2013
- siRNA silencing of estrogen receptor-α expression specifically in medial preoptic area neurons abolishes maternal care in female miceProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2012
- The Challenge of Translation in Social Neuroscience: A Review of Oxytocin, Vasopressin, and Affiliative BehaviorNeuron, 2010
- Normal maternal behavior, but increased pup mortality, in conditional oxytocin receptor knockout females.Behavioral Neuroscience, 2010
- Remote Control of Neuronal Activity in Transgenic Mice Expressing Evolved G Protein-Coupled ReceptorsNeuron, 2009
- Brain vasopressin is an important regulator of maternal behavior independent of dams' trait anxietyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008
- Epigenetic mechanisms and the transgenerational effects of maternal careFrontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 2008
- Genome-wide atlas of gene expression in the adult mouse brainNature, 2006
- Lesions of the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus disrupt the initiation of maternal behaviorPhysiology & Behavior, 1989