Abstract
Research investigating the neural substrates underpinning parental behaviour has recently gained momentum. Particularly, the hypothalamic medial preoptic area (MPOA) has been identified as a crucial region for parenting. The current study conducted a scientometric analysis of publications from 1 January 1972 to 19 January 2021 using CiteSpace software to determine trends in the scientific literature exploring the relationship between MPOA and parental behaviour. In total, 677 scientific papers were analysed, producing a network of 1509 nodes and 5498 links. Four major clusters were identified: “C-Fos Expression”, “Lactating Rat”, “Medial Preoptic Area Interaction” and “Parental Behavior”. Their content suggests an initial trend in which the properties of the MPOA in response to parental behavior were studied, followed by a growing attention towards the presence of a brain network, including the reward circuits, regulating such behavior. Furthermore, while attention was initially directed uniquely to maternal behavior, it has recently been extended to the understanding of paternal behaviors as well. Finally, although the majority of the studies were conducted on rodents, recent publications broaden the implications of previous documents to human parental behavior, giving insight into the mechanisms underlying postpartum depression. Potential directions in future works were also discussed.
Highlights
Across many species, social encounters and interactions are ubiquitous and the regulation of social behaviours is essential for health and survival
The major clusters identified in the document co-citation analysis (DCA) were highly internally homogeneous
We used a scientometric analysis to identify research trends in past publications investigating the association between the medial preoptic area (MPOA) and parental behaviour
Summary
Social encounters and interactions are ubiquitous and the regulation of social behaviours is essential for health and survival. Parental behaviours form a complex category of activities influenced by a range of internal and external factors [1], where laboratory rodents are popular animal models used to study these factors. Sex differences are observed in parenting behaviours where male and female rodents differ in spontaneity of parental behaviours. While both virgin and postpartum female mice are spontaneously maternal and have an innate motivation to care for pups [2,3], virgin males often engage in infanticide where they attack and kill newborn pups as an adaptive reproductive strategy to increase their mating opportunities [4,5,6,7]. Female rats are (i) less likely to be infanticidal [7,8,9],
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