Departments of Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, United States.
Departments of Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, United States.
Front Neuroendocrinol. 2020 Apr;57:100839. doi: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2020.100839. Epub 2020 Apr 16.
Initiation and maintenance of maternal behavior is driven by a complex interaction between the physiology of parturition and offspring stimulation, causing functional changes in maternal brain and behavior. Maternal behaviors are among the most robust and rewarding motivated behaviors. Mesolimbic dopamine (DA) system alterations during pregnancy and the postpartum enable enhanced reward-related responses to offspring stimuli. Here, we review behavioral evidence demonstrating postpartum rodents exhibit a bias towards pups and pup-related stimuli in reward-related tasks. Next, we provide an overview of normative adaptations in the mesolimbic DA system induced by parturition and the postpartum, which likely mediate shifts in offspring valence. We also discuss a causal link between dopaminergic dysfunction and disrupted maternal behaviors, which are recapitulated in postpartum depression (PPD) and relevant rodent models. In sum, mesolimbic DA system activation drives infant-seeking behavior and strengthens the mother-infant bond, potentially representing a therapeutic target for reward-related deficits in PPD.
母性行为的启动和维持是由分娩生理学和后代刺激之间的复杂相互作用驱动的，导致母脑和行为的功能变化。母性行为是最强烈和最有回报的动机行为之一。怀孕期间和产后中脑边缘多巴胺 (DA) 系统的改变使对后代刺激的增强的奖赏相关反应成为可能。在这里，我们回顾了行为证据，证明产后啮齿动物在与奖赏相关的任务中对幼崽和与幼崽相关的刺激表现出偏向。接下来，我们概述了分娩和产后引起的中脑边缘 DA 系统的正常适应，这可能介导了后代效价的变化。我们还讨论了多巴胺能功能障碍与破坏的母性行为之间的因果关系，这在产后抑郁症 (PPD) 和相关的啮齿动物模型中得到了再现。总之，中脑边缘 DA 系统的激活驱动了婴儿寻找行为，并加强了母婴联系，这可能代表了 PPD 中与奖赏相关的缺陷的治疗靶点。
