Topic: parental care

Parental care is crucial for the survival and development of offspring in altricial mammalian species. While maternal behavior in postpartum females is already well understood, the neural mechanisms underlying the acquisition of maternal behavior without prior experience still remains unclear. In this project we aimed to understand and decipher the individual key mechanism underlying this ability.We could demonstrate that virgin females can rapidly develop maternal care behavior upon first-time pup exposure, and that this process is initiated by the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex