Department of Basic Research on Social Recognition, Research Center for Child Mental Development, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa 920-8640, Japan.
Neurosci Lett. 2013 Jun 24;546:63-6. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2013.04.059. Epub 2013 May 10.
Appropriate parental care by the father can greatly facilitate healthy human family life. Much less is known from animal studies about the factors leading to paternal parental care than those favoring maternal parent care. Recently, we have reported that sires of the ICR strain of laboratory mice can express maternal-like retrieval behavior when separated from their pups through ultrasound and pheromonal signals from the dam, i.e. mate-dependent parental care. The sire's retrieval behavior was inhibited by prior treatment of scopolamine, a muscarinic cholinergic inhibitor, and recovered by physostigmine. KCNQ K(+)-channel blocking and enhancing drugs, linopiridine and retigabine, were also examined. Linopiridine alone did not enhance care after pairing with the dam, nor change scopolamine-induced inhibition of care. Retigabine totally suppressed parental care, and this effect was partially rescued by co-administration of linopiridine. These results indicate the involvement of cholinergic cellular signaling in the central nervous system in the maternal induction of paternal parental behavior in ICR mice.
父亲适当的育儿方式可以极大地促进人类家庭生活的健康。与促进母性育儿的因素相比，动物研究对导致父性育儿的因素知之甚少。最近，我们报道了实验室小鼠 ICR 品系的雄性可以通过来自母鼠的超声波和信息素信号，表达出类似母性的寻回行为，即伴侣依赖的育儿行为。雄性的寻回行为被毒蕈碱型乙酰胆碱能抑制剂东莨菪碱预先处理所抑制，并被毒扁豆碱所恢复。我们还检查了 KCNQ K(+)通道阻断和增强药物，利诺吡啶和瑞替加滨。单独使用利诺吡啶与与母鼠配对后，不会增强育儿行为，也不会改变东莨菪碱诱导的育儿行为抑制。瑞替加滨完全抑制了亲代养育行为，而利诺吡啶的共同给药部分挽救了这种效应。这些结果表明，在 ICR 小鼠中，胆碱能细胞信号在中枢神经系统中参与了母性诱导的父性育儿行为。
