Neuroscience Graduate Program, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA.
Neural Plast. 2023 Feb 15;2023:5225952. doi: 10.1155/2023/5225952. eCollection 2023.
While infant cues are often assumed to innately motivate maternal response, recent research highlights how the neural coding of infant cues is altered through maternal care. Infant vocalizations are important social signals for caregivers, and evidence from mice suggests that experience caring for mouse pups induces inhibitory plasticity in the auditory cortex (AC), though the molecular mediators for such AC plasticity during the initial pup experience are not well delineated. Here, we used the maternal mouse communication model to explore whether transcription in AC of a specific, inhibition-linked, memory-associated gene, brain-derived neurotrophic factor () changes due to the very first pup caring experience hearing vocalizations, while controlling for the systemic influence of the hormone estrogen. Ovariectomized and estradiol or blank-implanted virgin female mice hearing pup calls with pups present had significantly higher AC exon IV mRNA compared to females without pups present, suggesting that the social context of vocalizations induces immediate molecular changes at the site of auditory cortical processing. E2 influenced the rate of maternal behavior but did not significantly affect mRNA transcription in the AC. To our knowledge, this is the first time has been associated with processing social vocalizations in the AC, and our results suggest that it is a potential molecular component responsible for enhancing future recognition of infant cues by contributing to AC plasticity.
虽然婴儿的暗示通常被认为是本能地激发母亲的反应，但最近的研究强调了婴儿暗示的神经编码是如何通过母亲的照顾而改变的。婴儿的发声是照顾者的重要社交信号，来自老鼠的证据表明，照顾老鼠幼崽会诱导听觉皮层（AC）的抑制性可塑性，尽管在最初的幼崽体验期间，AC 可塑性的分子介体尚不清楚。在这里，我们使用母鼠通讯模型来探索特定的、与抑制有关的、与记忆相关的基因脑源性神经营养因子（brain-derived neurotrophic factor，BDNF）的转录是否由于第一次听到幼崽叫声的照顾体验而在 AC 中发生变化，同时控制激素雌激素的全身影响。与没有幼崽存在的雌性相比，有幼崽存在并听到幼崽叫声的去卵巢和雌二醇或空白植入的处女雌性小鼠的 AC 外显子 IV mRNA 显著升高，这表明发声的社交环境会在听觉皮层处理的部位立即引起分子变化。E2 影响了母性行为的速度，但对 AC 中的 mRNA 转录没有显著影响。据我们所知，这是 BDNF 首次与 AC 中处理社交发声有关，我们的结果表明，它是增强未来对婴儿暗示识别的潜在分子成分，通过促进 AC 可塑性来实现。
