Oxytocin Enables Maternal Behavior by Balancing Cortical Inhibition
By B. J. Marlin, M. Mitre, James A. D’Amour, M. Chao, Robert Froemke. Nature, 2015
684 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Oxytocin is important for social interactions and maternal behaviour. However, little is known about when, where and how oxytocin modulates neural circuits to improve social cognition. Here we show how oxytocin enables pup retrieval behaviour in female mice by enhancing auditory cortical pup call responses. Retrieval behaviour required the left but not right auditory cortex, was accelerated by oxytocin in the left auditory cortex, and oxytocin receptors were preferentially expressed in the left auditory cortex. Neural responses to pup calls were lateralized, with co-tuned and temporally precise excitatory and inhibitory responses in the left cortex of maternal but not pup-naive adults. Finally, pairing calls with oxytocin enhanced responses by balancing the magnitude and timing of inhibition with excitation. Our results describe fundamental synaptic mechanisms by which oxytocin increases the salience of acoustic social stimuli. Furthermore, oxytocin-induced plasticity provides a biological basis for lateralization of auditory cortical processing.
Subfields: Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, Pharmacy, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/28dc25763d68a1403f32f4ca5c2369a9523aaf3a
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In Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
In Social Psychology
Citations in the corpus
- Parallel processing by cortical inhibition enables context-dependent behavior (2016, neutral): “It may be a general property of developed cortical circuits in the auditory system 20,24,26 and other sensory modalities 23,35 .”
- Plasticity of Cortical Excitatory-Inhibitory Balance (2015, background): “In recordings from auditory cortical neurons, pup distress calls evoke much stronger spiking responses in mothers than in virgins, possibly increasing the detection and discrimination of pup calls (Cohen et al. 2011, Ehret 2005, Liu & Schreiner 2007, Marlin et al. 2015).”