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The genetics of motherhood

Nature Genetics volume 20, pages 108–109 (1998)Cite this article

Do genes control maternal behaviour in female mammals? If so, how do they do it? Do they really affect maternal behaviour or do they affect some other behavioural component common to both maternal behaviour and other behavioural responses? How does a female become an effective mother? The working assumption is that genes are expressed at key developmental points to ensure that maternal care is displayed by the newly parturient and lactating female. On page 163, Louis Lefebvre and colleagues underscore this assumption by demonstrating a key role for the imprinted gene, Mest.

Most female mammals display aspects of maternal care independent of pregnancy, parturition and lactation. Naive, virgin adult rats, for example, will begin to retrieve, group and crouch over foster young if constantly exposed to them for a period of about five days2. In contrast, females at parturition show a spontaneous onset of maternal care—they do not require a period of exposure to respond. This spontaneous behaviour appears to be stimulated by the endocrine changes that occur throughout pregnancy and at the time of birth. Stimulatory roles of the hormones estradiol, progesterone, prolactin and placental lactogen, and the neuropeptides oxytocin and β-endorphin, have been identified3. In addition, a hormonal cocktail that includes estradiol, progesterone and prolactin (a mixture similar to that which circulates in the maternal bloodstream during pregnancy) effectively reduces the latencies of virgin female rats in responding maternally to foster young to less than one day. Similarly, central infusions of oxytocin stimulate a rapid onset of maternal care in estrogen-primed virgin rats4. Despite these data, mice appear to rely less upon hormones to stimulate maternal care at parturition than do rats; virgin mice of numerous strains display high levels of maternal care. They therefore provide the scientist with a valuable animal model in which the underlying basis of maternal behaviour is more robust with respect to genetic contribution and less dependent upon hormones for its expression.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, Peabody Pavilion, 200 Westboro Road, North Grafton, 01536-1895 , Massachusetts, USA

    Robert S Bridges

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  1. Robert S Bridges
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Bridges, R. The genetics of motherhood. Nat Genet 20, 108–109 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/2399

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