Streit Morsch, E. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2025

Activation of latent programs for maternal behavior

Maternal behaviors in mammals, which are critical for offspring survival, involve complex interactions between innate neural circuits and behavioral flexibility. This flexibility depends on environmental needs and external stimuli. Recent studies suggest that social transmission plays a crucial role in the acquisition of maternal behaviors in alloparental (non-maternal) subjects, particularly highlighting visual observation for virgin female mice to acquire pup retrieval behavior. However, the extent to which these behaviors rely on social transmission versus the activation of pre-existing, latent behaviors remains unclear. Here, we systematically investigated the necessity of social observation for maternal behavior acquisition, using a social transmission pup retrieval paradigm in pup-naive virgin female mice. Following the same protocol as previous studies, we compared retrieval performance on conditions that either allowed or prevented the visual observation of maternal demonstrations. Contrary to previous findings reporting substantial differences between these conditions, we found that virgin females readily acquired pup retrieval behavior regardless of their visual access to experienced mothers. We observed no significant correlation between maternal and virgin performance after task exposure. Detailed behavioral analysis revealed that the primary difference between mothers and virgins lay on the latency to initiate the behavior, but once started, virgins complete the retrieval as fast as mothers. Together, our findings show that pup exposure is enough to activate latent behaviors, and suggest that pup retrieval might not be transmitted by visual observation.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Inhibition from the oxytocin system tunes prefrontal circuit dynamics to promote social behavior

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a central role in the selection and expression of diverse social behaviors. A balance of excitation and inhibition is necessary for normal social functioning, but it remains unclear how inhibition sculpts pyramidal activity to promote specific social behaviors. To address this question, we developed a novel decision-making task in which female mice chose between interaction with a male (sociosexual stimulus) or an appetitive non-social option (milk solution). To explore the role of a task-relevant inhibitory subpopulation, we targeted neurons in the medial PFC (mPFC) expressing oxytocin receptors (OXTR neurons). Combining optogenetic inhibition of OXTR neurons with population calcium imaging of pyramidal neural activity, we found that OXTR neurons normally promote interaction with a male compared to a non-social alternative. OXTR neurons also regulate pyramidal activity, which enables a specific ensemble to represent the male option during decision-making. Computational modeling reproduced these findings through a pyramidal competition mechanism, in which regulation by OXTR neurons allows a male-representing pyramidal ensemble to effectively compete against the remaining pyramidal population to drive male choice. These results provide a candidate mechanism by which inhibition enables mPFC pyramidal activity to select for specific social behaviors and may help explain why excitation/inhibition balance is so important for social functioning.

neuroscience↗