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Parental-care puzzle in mice solved by thinking outside the brain

Both parents of oldfield mice care for offspring, whereas in deer mice, mothers usually care for pups. The discovery of a type of adrenal-gland cell that is present in oldfield mice but not in deer mice helps to explain the difference.
  1. Jessica Tollkuhn

    1. Jessica Tollkuhn is at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 11724, USA.

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How does a species evolve its unique repertoire of behaviours? The identification of causal relationships between genes and biological outcomes is a major goal of biology. Behaviour, an emergent property of the brain, is arguably the most fascinating and challenging puzzle in the quest to connect genes to their consequences — scientists need to find the circuit that mediates the behaviour of interest and then discover where and when in the circuit a given gene acts. Writing in Nature, Niepoth et al.1 reveal that differences in parenting behaviour of mice species can arise, in part, through evolutionary innovation of a type of cell in the adrenal gland, rather than through a change initiated in the brain. These remarkable findings highlight the power of evolutionary comparisons and provide an innovative way to understand how the body can direct behavioural outcomes.

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Nature 629, 1006-1008 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01356-2

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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