Topic: estrous state

Internal states flexibly shape social behaviour. Females across species for instance become more receptive during Estrus, more parental during pregnancy, and more aggressive during hunger. While most research has focussed on the behavioural role of individual internal states, animals exhibit multiple states at any given time. How and where the brain integrates combinations of states to shape behaviour remains largely unknown. Here we report that hunger and estrous state together orchestrate a switch to pup-directed aggression in female mice. This behavioural switch results from inhibition of t