Collaborative Research: Maternal Transitions in a Mouth-Brooding Cichlid

在许多动物中，母性照顾已经进化，但大多数关于潜在神经机制的研究只在哺乳动物中进行。本项目利用这一丰富的研究成果，研究伯托尼星罗非鱼（Astatotilapia burtoni）的母鱼口育。这个物种提供了一个独立进化的强大的母性照顾的例子。在这里，调节母性行为的神经回路必须与调节摄食的神经回路密切互动，以允许自愿饥饿，以便在体重显著下降的情况下不吃掉幼崽。拟议中的实验将在里德学院和路易斯安那州立大学进行，为顶尖文理学院的本科生和EPSCoR学院（LSU）的本科生和研究生提供研究和交流机会。了解喂养机制和大脑区域在多大程度上被用于母亲照顾，将使我们对这一重要的适应性社会行为的进化有一个大致的了解。除了解决产妇护理的演变，这项研究可能会影响与代谢和喂养障碍相关的人类健康研究，因为它可能揭示允许这些电路解耦的新机制。该合作研究项目旨在了解从自我促进行为到后代促进行为的行为转换的分子和生理机制，这是强大的母性护理所必需的。burtoni Astatotilapia一直是社会基因组学和综合动物行为的长期模型。利用免疫组织化学，研究人员和他们的学生将量化“母体大脑”中特定神经元类型的即时早期基因表达，以及测定细胞类型的大小或数量变化。使用转录组学方法，他们将量化候选脑核以及外周信号系统的基因表达差异。最后，来自视前区神经元的体内神经记录将用于确定在不同的产妇护理阶段对鸡蛋/油炸食品相关刺激的生理敏感性。全面描述母鱼大脑与喂养调节的相互作用是两位研究人员的长期合作议程，并使他们能够利用同时描述基因表达和功能研究的协同作用。里德学院和路易斯安那州立大学的学生将参与这项研究的各个方面。这个项目包括数学和生物学的合作，让学生开发R脚本来询问不同大脑区域和不同女性群体中不同基因表达网络之间的相似性和差异性。所有生成的脚本和算法将在网上托管，通过出版物传播，并由学生在科学会议上提出。

Maternal care has evolved in many animals, yet most research on the underlying neural mechanisms has been carried out only in mammals. This project capitalizes on that rich body of research to study maternal mouth-brooding in the cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni. This species offers an independently-evolved instance of robust maternal care. Here, the neural circuits regulating maternal behavior must interact intimately with the neural circuits regulating feeding to allow voluntary starvation in order not to eat the young despite significant loss of body mass. The proposed experiments will be conducted at Reed College & Louisiana State University, providing research and exchange opportunities between undergraduates at a top liberal arts institution and both undergraduate and graduate students from an EPSCoR institution (LSU). Understanding the degree to which mechanisms and brain regions for feeding have been co-opted for maternal care will inform our general understanding of the evolution of this important adaptive social behavior. In addition to addressing the evolution of maternal care, this research may impact human health research related to metabolic and feeding disorders as it may uncover novel mechanisms that allow decoupling of these circuits.This collaborative research project aims to understand the molecular and physiological mechanisms that underlie the behavioral switch from self-promoting behavior to offspring-promoting behavior that is required for robust maternal care. Astatotilapia burtoni has been a long standing model for sociogenomics and integrative animal behavior. Using immunohistochemistry, researchers and their students will quantify immediate-early gene expression in specific neuronal types across the "maternal brain" as well as assay cell types for changes in size or number. Using transriptomic approaches, they will quantify gene expression differences in candidate brain nuclei as well as peripheral signaling systems. Finally, in vivo neural recordings from neurons in the preoptic area will be used to determine physiological sensitivity to egg/fry versus food-related stimuli during different stages of maternal care. Fully describing the cichlid maternal brain as it interacts with feeding regulation is the long term collaborative agenda of the two researchers and allows them to capitalize on the synergy of simultaneously describing gene expression and functional studies. Students from Reed College and Louisiana State University will be involved in all aspects of this research. This project includes a math-biology collaboration to have students develop R scripts to interrogate similarity and differences between different gene expression networks in the different brain regions and different female groups. All resulting scripts and algorithms will be hosted online, disseminated through publication and presented by students at scientific conferences.