Abstract
When animals and their offspring are threatened, parents switch from self-defense to offspring protection. How self-defense is suppressed remains elusive. We postulated that suppression of the self-defense response, freezing, is gated via oxytocin acting in the centro-lateral amygdala (CeL). We found that rat dams conditioned to fear an odor, froze when tested alone, whereas if pups were present, they remained in close contact with them or targeted the threat. Furthermore, blocking oxytocin signaling in the CeL prevented the suppression of maternal freezing. Finally, pups exposed to the odor in the presence of the conditioned dam later froze when re-exposed alone. However, if oxytocin signaling in the dam had been blocked, pups failed to learn. This study provides a functional role for the well-described action of oxytocin in the central amygdala, and demonstrates that self-defense suppression allows for active pup protection and mother-pup interactions crucial for pup threat learning.
Highlights
There are several examples in the wild of active defense responses by parents to threats that constitute a danger to the offspring and themselves (Byrkjedal, 1989; Pavel and Bures, 2001; Long, 1993)
Rat dams with young pups, unable to move from the nest, display defensive responses geared towards the threat actively protecting the pups
We found that maternal defense is initially determined by maternal stage progressively becoming more dependent on the pups, a similar pattern to that observed for maternal aggression (Caughey et al, 2011; de Almeida et al, 2014)
Summary
There are several examples in the wild of active defense responses by parents to threats that constitute a danger to the offspring and themselves (Byrkjedal, 1989; Pavel and Bures, 2001; Long, 1993). Rather than engaging in the self-defense behavior of hiding or fleeing, the parents might hide the young and/or attack a predator. Despite its clear adaptive value, little is known about the neural mechanisms by which parents flexibly change from self-defense to offspring defense. To address this issue we used the laboratory rat, for which a great deal is known regarding the neural circuits underlying defense behaviors. It is well described that the social environment modulates defensive behavior, such as freezing in adult rats (Kikusui et al, 2006; Kiyokawa et al, 2004 Knapska et al, 2010) and that rat dams will attack an adult male that poses
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