Neural circuitry for maternal oxytocin release induced by infant cries

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that is important for maternal physiology and childcare, including parturition and milk ejection during nursing 1 – 6 . Suckling triggers the release of oxytocin, but other sensory cues—specifically, infant cries—can increase the levels of oxytocin in new human mothers 7 ,...

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Veröffentlicht in:Nature (London) Jg. 621; H. 7980; S. 788 - 795
Hauptverfasser: Valtcheva, Silvana, Issa, Habon A., Bair-Marshall, Chloe J., Martin, Kathleen A., Jung, Kanghoon, Zhang, Yiyao, Kwon, Hyung-Bae, Froemke, Robert C.
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: London Nature Publishing Group UK 28.09.2023
Nature Publishing Group
Schlagworte:
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Animals
Bats
Calling behavior
Cues
Female
Gates (circuits)
Hormones
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hypothalamus
Hypothalamus - cytology
Hypothalamus - physiology
Infants
Maternal behavior
Maternal Behavior - physiology
Mice
multidisciplinary
Neural networks
Neural Pathways
Neurons
Neurons - metabolism
Offspring
Oxytocin
Oxytocin - metabolism
Parturition
Photometry
Rabies
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Sensory integration
Suckling behavior
Thalamic Nuclei - physiology
Thalamus
Vocalization, Animal - physiology
Wakefulness
ISSN:0028-0836, 1476-4687, 1476-4687
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Zusammenfassung:Oxytocin is a neuropeptide that is important for maternal physiology and childcare, including parturition and milk ejection during nursing 1 – 6 . Suckling triggers the release of oxytocin, but other sensory cues—specifically, infant cries—can increase the levels of oxytocin in new human mothers 7 , which indicates that cries can activate hypothalamic oxytocin neurons. Here we describe a neural circuit that routes auditory information about infant vocalizations to mouse oxytocin neurons. We performed in vivo electrophysiological recordings and photometry from identified oxytocin neurons in awake maternal mice that were presented with pup calls. We found that oxytocin neurons responded to pup vocalizations, but not to pure tones, through input from the posterior intralaminar thalamus, and that repetitive thalamic stimulation induced lasting disinhibition of oxytocin neurons. This circuit gates central oxytocin release and maternal behaviour in response to calls, providing a mechanism for the integration of sensory cues from the offspring in maternal endocrine networks to ensure modulation of brain state for efficient parenting. Experiments in mice identify a neural circuit that relays information about infant cries from the maternal auditory thalamus to hypothalamic oxytocin neurons to induce the release of oxytocin and modulate maternal behaviour.
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Author contributions S.V. performed in vivo cell-attached, whole-cell and tungsten recordings, fibre photometry, in vitro whole-cell recordings, behaviour for chemogenetic inactivation studies, oxytocin sensor experiments, viral injections, histology, image acquisition and data analysis of electrophysiology and behaviour experiments. H.A.I. performed fibre photometry and behaviour for chemogenetic inactivation and cannula infusion studies. C.J.B.-M. performed fibre photometry and in vitro whole-cell recordings for the scrambled dynamin inhibitor experiments. H.A.I., K.A.M. and Y.Z. wrote code and performed analysis of the photometry recordings. K.J. and H.-B.K. contributed to the design of viral constructs and data analysis for the oxytocin sensor. S.V. and R.C.F. designed the study and wrote the paper.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/s41586-023-06540-4