Topic: virgin mice

Alloparental behaviors consist in a set of actions undertaken by adults to insure pups’ survival. Naive virgin mice can display alloparental behaviors the first time they are exposed to pups but their performances improve after a long or several exposures. The neurobiological substrates of this phenomenon are still unclear. This project aims to assess the role of olfaction in the establishment of alloparental behaviors and the ability of mice to recognize familiar from “alien” pups (ie pups never encountered before, with a different olfactory signature). We found that virgin mice display simil