Neural circuitry of oxytocin signaling for alloparenting behavior

同种异体行为的催产素信号传导的神经回路

• 批准号: 10462895
• 负责人: Robert Crooks Froemke
• 金额: $ 67.87万
• 依托单位: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-04-01 至 2027-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10462895
• 关键词: Afferent Neurons; Anatomy; Animals; Area; Auditory; Auditory area; Behavior; Behavioral; Biological; Brain; Caregivers; Caring; Cells; Child; Child Abuse and Neglect; Child Care; Child Development; Child Rearing; Childbirth; Clinical Research; Crying; Cues; Data; Distress; Educational Intervention; Educational process of instructing; Electrophysiology (science); Ensure; Female; Foundations; Head; Helping Behavior; Hormones; Housing; Human; Hypothalamic structure; Individual; Infant; Lactation; Learning; Mammals; Maternal Behavior; Modality; Monitor; Mothers; Motivation; Motor; Mus; Neuroendocrinology; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Neurosciences; Neurosecretory Systems; Oxytocin; Pair Bond; Parents; Patients; Population; Postpartum Depression; Primates; Process; Psyche structure; Retrieval; Route; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Slice; Social Behavior; Social Interaction; Stimulus; System; Testing; Therapeutic; Therapeutic Agents; Training; Training Programs; Ultrasonics; Visual; base; behavioral response; behavioral study; biobehavior; child neglect; experience; experimental study; improved; in vivo; movie; neglect; neonate; neural circuit; neurobehavioral; neuromechanism; offspring; optogenetics; paraventricular nucleus; parvocellular; peptide hormone; pup; recruit; relating to nervous system; response; sensory input; social; social cognition; somatosensory; statistics; success; suckling; supraoptic nucleus; transmission process; treatment strategy; vocalization

Project Summary Maternal care of offspring requires rapid neurobehavioral changes, including plasticity within circuits specialized for processing infant cues such as crying. Neuroendocrine signals are important for neuroplasticity, including release of the peptide hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin is released from the hypothalamus and is important for childbirth and lactation. Oxytocin also acts in the brain where it is believed to increase the salience of social information, enhancing pair bonding and maternal behavior. Clinical studies suggest that oxytocin is a promising therapeutic agent, with patients sometimes engaging more successfully in social interactions. Although there is a high rate of child maltreatment and neglect, training programs and interventions that teach parents to detect and respond to social signals have had some success. These therapies would benefit from understanding how observing, learning, and teaching behaviors required for childcare involve various neural circuits and processes, including how the central oxytocin system might be involved in neuroplasticity relevant for maternal behaviors. In this proposal, we will study the neural circuitry, plasticity, and behavioral effects of oxytocin in the context of maternal behavior and learned alloparenting in mice. We study neurobehavioral responses to infant ultrasonic vocalizations by maternal caregivers, which requires experience with pups and is facilitated by oxytocin. We will study behavioral interactions between experienced mother mice (‘dams’) and virgin females put in the homecage with dam and pups. The central hypothesis is that dams change their behavior in the presence of the virgin, recruiting them to be co-carers via behaviors that increase virgin oxytocin signaling to promote alloparenting. We will use in vivo recordings and optogenetics in behaving animals, combined with studies of neural circuits providing sensory input to hypothalamic oxytocin neurons. In Aim 1 we monitor and manipulate oxytocin signaling as virgins watch movies of dams being maternal. In Aim 2, we study how visual input and other sensory signals are routed to oxytocin neurons. Finally in Aim 3 we ask if oxytocin neurons in dams are important for changes in dam behavior to help transmit maternal behaviors or train virgins to be alloparents. In summary, here we will use behavioral experiments combined with optogenetics and in vivo recordings to ask how oxytocin is released to enable maternal recognition of infant distress calls. These experiments will provide fundamental and urgently-needed data on the neural circuitry and functional consequences of oxytocin signaling in the mammalian brain, in the context of a deep and long-standing question in neuroscience: how are specific neural circuits specialized for sensory processing and maternal behavior?

项目摘要 母亲照顾后代需要迅速的神经行为变化，包括专门回路内的可塑性 来处理婴儿的线索比如哭泣神经内分泌信号对神经可塑性很重要，包括 释放缩氨酸荷尔蒙催产素。催产素是从下丘脑释放出来的， 分娩和哺乳。催产素也在大脑中起作用，据信它可以增加社交活动的显著性。 信息，增强配对和母性行为。临床研究表明催产素是一种很有前途的 治疗剂，患者有时更成功地参与社会互动。虽然 虐待和忽视儿童的比率很高，培训计划和干预措施教会父母发现 并对社交信号做出反应已经取得了一些成功。这些疗法将受益于了解 儿童保育所需的观察、学习和教学行为涉及各种神经回路和过程， 包括中枢催产素系统如何参与与母性行为相关的神经可塑性。 在这个建议中，我们将研究催产素在大脑中的神经回路、可塑性和行为效应。 母亲的行为和学习的alloparenting在小鼠的背景。我们研究婴儿的神经行为反应， 母亲看护者的超声波发声，这需要幼鼠的经验，并通过以下方式促进 催产素我们将研究有经验的母鼠（“母鼠”）和未交配的母鼠之间的行为互动 把它和母鼠和幼崽放在一起。核心假设是，大坝改变他们的行为， 处女的存在，通过增加处女催产素信号的行为招募他们成为共同照顾者， 提倡父母间的不平等。我们将在行为动物中使用体内记录和光遗传学， 对下丘脑催产素神经元提供感觉输入的神经回路的研究。在目标1中，我们监测和 操控催产素信号，就像处女看电影中的母亲一样。在目标2中，我们研究视觉如何 输入和其它感觉信号被路由到催产素神经元。最后，在目标3中，我们问， 母鼠对母鼠行为的改变很重要，有助于传递母性行为或训练处女 异源父母 综上所述，在这里我们将使用行为实验结合光遗传学和体内记录 研究催产素是如何释放的，从而使母亲能够识别婴儿的求救信号。这些实验将 提供有关催产素的神经回路和功能后果的基本和迫切需要的数据 哺乳动物大脑中的信号，在神经科学中一个深刻而长期存在的问题的背景下： 感觉处理和母性行为的特殊神经回路