Yohn Christine N, Leithead Amanda B, Ford Julian, Gill Alexander, Becker Elizabeth A
Department of Psychology, Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, United States.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2018 Aug 29;12:181. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00181. eCollection 2018.
Natural variations in parenting are associated with differences in expression of several hormones and neuropeptides which may mediate lasting effects on offspring development, like regulation of stress reactivity and social behavior. Using the bi-parental California mouse, we have demonstrated that parenting and aggression are programmed, at least in part, by paternal behavior as adult offspring model the degree of parental behavior received in development and are more territorial following high as compared to low levels of care. Development of these behaviors may be driven by transient increases in testosterone following paternal retrievals and increased adult arginine vasopressin (AVP) immunoreactivity within the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) among high-care (HC) offspring. It remains unclear, however, whether other neuropeptides, such as oxytocin (OT), which is sensitive to gonadal steroids, are similarly impacted by father-offspring interactions. To test this question, we manipulated paternal care (high and low care) and examined differences in adult offspring OT-immunoreactive (OT-ir) within social brain areas as well as basal T and corticosterone (Cort) levels. HC offspring had more OT-ir within the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and supraoptic nucleus (SON) than low-care (LC) offspring. Additionally, T levels were higher among HC than LC females, but no differences were found in males. There were no differences in Cort indicating that our brief father-pup separations likely had no consequences on stress reactivity. Together with our previous work, our data suggest that social behavior may be programmed by paternal care through lasting influences on the neuroendocrine system.
养育方式的自然差异与几种激素和神经肽表达的差异有关，这些激素和神经肽可能介导对后代发育的持久影响，如对应激反应性和社会行为的调节。利用双亲抚养的加州小鼠，我们已经证明，养育行为和攻击性至少部分是由父性行为编程的，因为成年后代会模仿其在发育过程中所接受的养育行为程度，并且与低水平养育相比，高水平养育下的成年后代更具领地意识。这些行为的发展可能是由父性找回幼崽后睾酮的短暂增加以及高养育水平（HC）后代终纹床核（BNST）内成年精氨酸加压素（AVP）免疫反应性增加所驱动的。然而，尚不清楚其他对性腺类固醇敏感的神经肽，如催产素（OT），是否同样受到父子互动的影响。为了验证这个问题，我们操纵了父性养育（高养育和低养育），并检查了成年后代社会脑区OT免疫反应性（OT-ir）以及基础睾酮（T）和皮质酮（Cort）水平的差异。HC后代在室旁核（PVN）和视上核（SON）中的OT-ir比低养育水平（LC）后代更多。此外，HC雌性的T水平高于LC雌性，但在雄性中未发现差异。Cort水平没有差异，这表明我们短暂的父子分离可能对应激反应性没有影响。结合我们之前的研究，我们的数据表明，社会行为可能是由父性养育通过对神经内分泌系统的持久影响来编程的。
