Functional neuroanatomy of maternal motivation : role of oxytocinergic circuits in the social brain of mice
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Title
Functional neuroanatomy of maternal motivation : role of oxytocinergic circuits in the social brain of miceAuthor (s)
Tutor/Supervisor; University.Department
Martínez García, Fernando; Universitat Jaume I. Unitat Predepartamental de Medicina.; Bellés Esteller, MaríaDate
2020-06-08Publisher
Universitat Jaume IAbstract
During pregnancy, the future mothers’ brain is exposed to a wide variety of hormones that increase
her sensitivity to offspring and facilitate maternal behaviour. Literature describes oxytocin has a key
role in the ... [+]
During pregnancy, the future mothers’ brain is exposed to a wide variety of hormones that increase
her sensitivity to offspring and facilitate maternal behaviour. Literature describes oxytocin has a key
role in the neural circuits responsible for these responses. For this reason, our hypothesis is that the
expression of oxytocin is modified in the socio-sexual brain during motherhood. To do this, a motivated
maternal behaviour test (collecting pups in a paradigm of physical exertion) has been performed on
lactating dams, virgins exposed to pups and virgins without sensitization; and we counted the number
of neurons that expressed oxytocin in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, preoptic area and
nucleus of the stria terminalis; and calculated the density of oxytocinergic (OTergic) fibres in key
centres of the socio-sexual brain (nucleus accumbens and central amygdala). In this study we have
used data from the latest studies by Salais-López, (2017) and Lacomba (2020).
Our results indicate that motherhood induces a high motivation in dams to retrieve the pups. We only
found significant differences in the length of oxytocin fibres in the central amygdala between mothers
and virgins (higher in mothers), with no differences between the rest of the nuclei studied, so we
excluded the hypothesis formulated. On the other hand, motivated maternal behaviour (summation
of the inverse latency to the collection of all the offspring collected) is significantly and positively
correlated with the density of OTergic fibres to the nucleus accumbens, but only in dams. This suggests
that motherhood promotes OTergic neuroplasticity in specific areas. [-]
Subject
Description
Treball Final de Grau en Medicina. Codi: MD1158. Curs acadèmic: 2019/2020
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- Grau en Medicina [494]