Modulation of neuroplasticity and behaviour through parental experience

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Experience shapes the development and continued remodelling of neural circuits known as plasticity, which in turn gives rise to behavioural and cognitive variation. The cumulative experiences of parenthood, including pregnancy and the provision of parental care, are among the most important social experiences in an animal's life history. The importance of parental experience on parental brain physiology is less well-known than its role in offspring development and survival. However, changes in the brain with parenthood can impact a range of behaviours for the rest of the animal's life, including learning and memory and the regulation of stress and anxiety. All these behaviours involve the hippocampus, a highly plastic brain region that is altered through parental experience and by physiological status, such as hormonal changes that accompany the transition to parenthood. My past research in rats, a monoparental mammal in which the mother solely cares for the offspring, demonstrated that maternal experience remodels the hippocampus in the short-term and with aging. By necessity, the rarer studies on paternal experience have been performed on biparental species, but while studying fatherhood these studies typically neglect motherhood. Nonetheless, parental experience includes not only the interactions between each parent and their offspring, but between the care partners as well. We currently have a weak understanding of the extent of hippocampal remodelling with parental experience in females and males of the same species and its impact on behaviour. My proposed research program seeks to address this fundamental gap in our knowledge through a unified approach in degus, a biparental and long-lived rodent. I will first examine hippocampal remodelling and behaviour with parental experience and aging and the underlying hormonal mechanisms. I will then manipulate brain remodelling and hormonal pathways to directly link changes in plasticity with behaviour. Parenthood is a crucial experience in many animals, yet surprisingly little is known about the impact of this unique experience on the brain and with aging. The knowledge gained from this research will help us understand why parenthood remodels the brain in females and males in the short-term and with aging and its implications for behaviour. Trainees in this research program will be part of a dynamic and inclusive research environment and be encouraged to present at conferences and publish their results in scientific journals. Students will leave the lab with a range of skills in animal behaviour, neuroscience, physiology, and cellular and molecular biology, which are highly sought after in academia and transferable to the Canadian biomedical and health industries and to government laboratories.