WIKIMEDIA, SEWERYN OLKOWICZ
The hormone oxytocin alters the activity of neurons in the left auditory cortex of a mouse mother’s brain, making her more in tune with the distress cries of lost pups, according to a study published this week (April 15) in Nature.
Mouse mothers often move from nest to nest to avoid predators, carrying their offspring with them. The babies that fall off during the move cry out, prompting the mothers to backtrack and retrieve their lost pups. While mother mice respond to the cries by picking up the pups, even those that are not their own, virgin females generally ignore the ultrasonic distress calls.
To understand the brain change that makes mothers more responsive to pups’ cries, researchers from New York University (NYU) injected oxytocin ...
