Biology subjects

Villano, L.

Publications and source records attributed to Villano, L..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Mesolimbic dopamine signaling mediates increased hedonic feeding and food seeking in lactating mice

Lactation dramatically increases energy intake to support milk production and care for the offspring. However, the behavioral and neural circuit mechanisms driving heightened feeding during lactation remain unclear. Here, we reveal that lactation increases food-seeking behavior and enhances palatable food intake in mice. Fiber photometry recordings demonstrate increased dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens in lactating animals during feeding tasks. This elevated dopamine signaling is ultimately required for promoting both food seeking and palatable food intake during lactation as pharmacological inhibition of dopamine receptors or chemogenetic inhibition of VTA dopamine neurons both reduce food seeking and palatable food intake in lactating mice to non-lactating levels. Further, selective inhibition of dopamine receptors in the nucleus accumbens produces similar results. Together, these findings provide a circuit basis mediating elevated food seeking and palatable food intake during lactation, providing novel insights into the regulation of maternal energy balance and feeding behavior. HighlightsLactation increases food seeking and hedonic feeding in mice Mesolimbic dopamine levels are enhanced during feeding in lactating mice VTA dopamine neurons mediate increased palatable food intake and food seeking during lactation VTA-NAc dopamine transmission mediates increased food seeking and palatable food intake during lactation

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Evolutionary responses to historic drought across the range of scarlet monkeyflower

Adaptive evolution is a key means for populations to persist under environmental change, yet whether populations across a species range can adapt quickly enough to keep pace with climate change remains unknown. The breeders equation predicts the evolutionary change in a trait from one generation to the next as the product of the selection differential and the narrow-sense heritability in that trait. Incorporating these aspects of the breeders equation, we performed a resurrection study with the scarlet monkeyflower (Mimulus cardinalis) to evaluate whether traits associated with drought adaptation have evolved in populations across a species range in response to extreme drought. We compared trait and fitness differences of pre-drought ancestors and post-drought descendants from six populations transplanted into three latitudinally-arrayed common gardens and quantified phenotypic selection and trait heritabilities. The strength, direction, and mode of selection varied among traits and gardens. Trait heritabilities were relatively low, and did not differ dramatically among populations or gardens. Overall, instances of evolutionary responses between ancestors and descendants were few and small in magnitude, but the magnitude of these evolutionary differences varied among gardens. Together, these results suggest that the expression of genetic variation, and thus traits, depend on the environment, and that environmental variability in field settings may mask the genetic variation that is often detected in greenhouse environments.

evolutionary biology↗