Same, same, or different? Mechanisms of Parental Care Between Sexes

相同、相同还是不同？

• 批准号: 2146058
• 负责人: Eva Fischer
• 金额: $ 117.98万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-02-01 至 2026-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2146058&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Same; same; different; Mechanisms; Parental

Sex differences are a common feature of animal behavior. Yet, the mechanisms underlying these behavioral differences have proven difficult to understand because brains and genes are nearly identical between males and females, and behavior typical of one sex may occasionally be performed by the opposite sex. The goal of this project is to understand how hormones, neural activity, and gene expression interact to give rise to sex differences and reversals in behavior. Parental behavioral is a promising starting point, as many species exhibit sex differences in parental care, as well as the potential for sex-reversed care. The project capitalized on naturally occurring parental flexibility in a Neotropical poison frog, Dendrobates tinctorius. Males are the primary care givers in this system, with females only occasionally taking over, providing an important complement to existing work in mammals where parental care is female biased and limited by reliance on lactation. Outcomes of the project will provide new understanding of how behavioral sex differences are coded in the brain, how these differences lead to distinct behavioral patterns, and the conditions under which they can be altered or reversed. The project will train researchers at all stages, with a focus on recruitment of trainees from groups underrepresented in STEM. Additionally, poison frogs are fascinating, charismatic creatures that facilitate teaching of diverse audiences, including K-12 students and teachers through the “Froggers School Program” and the general public through community engagement events. A fundamental question at the intersection of evolution, behavior, and neurobiology is how novel behaviors arise and are incorporated into existing neural systems. Cross-sexual transfer, the emergence of traits initially exhibited only in one sex in the opposite sex, has been proposed as a major, underappreciated force in the evolution of behavior. Yet, the mechanisms that facilitate integration into opposite sex physiological, neural, and molecular systems are largely unknown. Solving this puzzle is intimately tied to understanding how behavior is coded across levels of organization – from genes, to gene networks, to cell types, to neural circuits, to physiology, to behavior. Leveraging naturally occurring parental care in Dendrobates tinctorius poison frogs, this project tests the central hypothesis that mechanistic interactions across levels of organization shape behavioral flexibility and evolution between sexes. Specifically, the project links hormone and neural activity patterns to individual variation and sex differences in behavior, asks whether shared versus distinct genes and cell types are associated with parental care in males and females, and causally tests these hypotheses by tracing the effects of hormone manipulations across levels of organization. Synthesis of data across multiple levels of organization is a key feature of this work. Additionally, the project will contribute to training of diverse researchers and community engagement. Project outcomes will provide inroads to understanding how behavioral sex differences are coded in the brain, the conditions under which they can be altered or reversed, and how underlying mechanisms are environmentally, developmentally, and evolutionarily tuned to coordinate complex behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

性别差异是动物行为的共同特征。然而，这些行为差异背后的机制已被证明是难以理解的，因为男性和女性之间的大脑和基因几乎是相同的，一种性别的典型行为偶尔可能会由异性执行。该项目的目标是了解激素，神经活动和基因表达如何相互作用，从而引起性别差异和行为逆转。父母行为是一个很有希望的起点，因为许多物种在父母照顾方面表现出性别差异，以及性别逆转照顾的潜力。该项目利用了新热带区毒蛙Dendrobates tinctorius中自然发生的亲本灵活性。在这个系统中，男性是主要的护理者，女性只是偶尔接管，为哺乳动物提供了重要的补充，在哺乳动物中，父母的护理是女性偏见和依赖哺乳的限制。该项目的成果将提供新的理解，行为性别差异如何在大脑中编码，这些差异如何导致不同的行为模式，以及在何种条件下可以改变或逆转。该项目将在各个阶段培训研究人员，重点是从STEM中代表性不足的群体中招聘学员。此外，毒蛙是迷人的，有魅力的生物，促进教学的不同观众，包括K-12学生和教师通过“青蛙学校计划”和公众通过社区参与活动。在进化、行为和神经生物学的交叉点上，一个基本的问题是新的行为是如何产生的，并被整合到现有的神经系统中。跨性别转移，最初只在一种性别中表现出的特征在异性中的出现，被认为是行为进化中一种主要的、未被重视的力量。然而，促进整合到异性生理，神经和分子系统的机制在很大程度上是未知的。解决这个难题与理解行为是如何在组织的各个层次上编码密切相关-从基因到基因网络，到细胞类型，到神经回路，到生理学，再到行为。利用自然发生的父母照顾Dendrobates tinctorius毒蛙，这个项目测试的中心假设，即机械的相互作用，跨层次的组织形状的行为灵活性和性别之间的进化。具体来说，该项目将激素和神经活动模式与行为的个体差异和性别差异联系起来，询问共享与不同的基因和细胞类型是否与男性和女性的父母照顾有关，并通过追踪组织水平上激素操纵的影响来因果检验这些假设。跨多个组织级别的数据合成是这项工作的一个关键特征。此外，该项目将有助于培训不同的研究人员和社区参与。项目成果将有助于理解行为性别差异如何在大脑中编码，在何种条件下它们可以被改变或逆转，以及潜在的机制如何在环境，发育，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.