WIKIMEDIA, HIPPOCAMPUSAdult male mice will often kill mouse pups they encounter, unless the adults mated with a female three weeks earlier—a behavioral switch presumed to help protect the males’ own offspring from their father’s infanticidal tendencies. New work published this week (May 14) in Nature points to the role of a specific subpopulation of neurons in the medial preoptic area (MPOA), a brain region previously linked to paternal care, in mediating these opposing behaviors.
“The study does address one of the things that have not been clearly understood—the switch of parental behavior for males,” said C. Ron Yu, a neuroscientist at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Missouri, who was not involved in the study. “What enables these neurons to be responsive once mating occurs [is still unclear],” he added. “The downstream circuitry will be interesting to find out.”
“The question about [exactly] how this switch is coming about is still not answered,” agreed behavioral ecologist Carsten Schradin of the French National Centre for Scientific Research’s Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, who also did not participate in the research, “but at least now because of this study we know where to look for that switch.”
Molecular neuroscientist ...
