Abstract
Fathers play a substantial role in infant care in a
small but significant number of mammalian species, including
humans. However, the neural circuitry controlling paternal
behavior is much less understood than its female counterpart.
In order to characterize brain areas activated by paternal
care, male California mice were separated from their
female mate and litter for 3 h and then exposed to a pup or a
control object (a glass pebble with the approximate size and
oblong shape of a newborn pup) for 10 min. All males receiving
a pup showed a strong paternal response towards it,
whereas males receiving a pebble interacted with it only
occasionally. Despite the clear behavioral differences, exposure
to a pup did not increase Fos-like immunoreactivity
(Fos-LIR) compared to a pebble in brain areas previously
found to be associated with parental care, including the medial
preoptic nucleus and medial bed nucleus of the stria
terminalis. Pup exposure did, however, significantly increase
Fos-L
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1094-1104 |
Journal | Neuroscience |
State | Published - 2010 |