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Motherhood Induces and Maintains Behavioral and Neural Plasticity across the Lifespan in the Rat

  • Original Paper: Minot Special Issue
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Abstract

Maternal behavior is multidimensional, encompassing many facets beyond the direct care of the young. Formerly unfamiliar activities are required of the mother. These include behaviors such as retrieving, grouping, crouching-over, and licking young, and protecting them against predators, together with enhancements in other behaviors, such as nest building, foraging, and aggression (inter/intra-species, predatory, etc.). When caring for young, the mother must strike a seemingly lose-lose bargain: leave the relative safety of the nest and her helpless offspring to forage for food and resources where predators await both mother and her vulnerable young, or remain entrenched and safe, thereby ensuring a slow and inexorable fate. Two predictions thus arise from this maternal cost-benefit ratio: first, there may be enhancements in behaviors on which the female relies, for example, predation and spatial ability, used for acquiring food and resources and for navigating her environment. Second, there may be reductions in the fear and anxiety inherent to the decision to leave the nest and to forage in an unforgiving environment where encounters with predators or reluctant/resistant prey await. There is overwhelming support for both hypotheses, with improvements in learning and memory accompanied by a diminution in stress responses and anxiety. The current review will examine the background for the phenomenon that is the maternal brain, and recent relevant data. In sum, the data indicate a remarkable set of changes that take place in the maternal (and, to a lesser extent, the paternal), brain, arguably, for the natural, simple but singular experience of reproduction.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the NIH (1-R15-HD37578-01), and NSF (BCS-0619544), the Beckman Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the University of Richmond Faculty, Graduate and Undergraduate Research Committees, and the administration in general for their continued support of our students and their research. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Yongde Bao and the Biomolecular Research Facility at the University of Virginia, for their assistance with running the DNA microarray studies. We also thank the MacEldin Trawick Endowment for its support of our ongoing research.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Center for Neuroscience (B-326/328), Gottwald Science Center, University of Richmond, 116 Richmond Hall, Richmond, VA, 23173, USA

    Craig Howard Kinsley, Massimo Bardi, Kate Karelina, Brandi Rima, Lillian Christon, Julia Friedenberg & Garrett Griffin

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  1. Craig Howard Kinsley
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  2. Massimo Bardi
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Correspondence to Craig Howard Kinsley.

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Kinsley, C.H., Bardi, M., Karelina, K. et al. Motherhood Induces and Maintains Behavioral and Neural Plasticity across the Lifespan in the Rat. Arch Sex Behav 37, 43–56 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-007-9277-x

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