Paternal retrieval behavior regulated by brain estrogen synthetase (aromatase) in mouse sires that engage in communicative interactions with pairmates
Open accessAbstract
Parental behaviors involve complex social recognition and memory processes and interactive behavior with children that can greatly facilitate healthy human family life. Fathers play a substantial role in child care in a small but significant number of mammals, including humans. However, the brain mechanism that controls male parental behavior is much less understood than that controlling female parental behavior. Fathers of non-monogamous laboratory ICR mice are an interesting model for examining the factors that influence paternal responsiveness because sires can exhibit maternal-like parental care (retrieval of pups) when separated from their pups along with their pairmates because of olfactory and auditory signals from the dams. Here we tested whether paternal behavior is related to femininity by the aromatization of testosterone. For this purpose, we measured the immunoreactivity of aromatase [cytochrome P450 family 19 (CYP19)], which synthesizes estrogen from androgen, in nine brain regions of the sire. We observed higher levels of aromatase expression in these areas of the sire brain when they engaged in communicative interactions with dams in separate cages. Interestingly, the number of nuclei with aromatase immunoreactivity in sires left together with maternal mates in the home cage after pup-removing was significantly larger than that in sires housed with a whole family. The capacity of sires to retrieve pups was increased following a period of 5 days spent with the pups as a whole family after parturition, whereas the acquisition of this ability was suppressed in sires treated daily with an aromatase inhibitor. The results demonstrate that the dam significantly stimulates aromatase in the male brain and that the presence of the pups has an inhibitory effect on this increase. These results also suggest that brain aromatization regulates the initiation, development, and maintenance of paternal behavior in the ICR male mice.
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Testosterone may be converted to estradiol via the aromatase enzyme, which is present in the frontal cortex.
“Testosterone may be converted to estradiol via the aromatase enzyme, which is present in the frontal cortex (Akther et al., 2015; Mitra et al., 2015)”
From Does puberty mark a transition in sensitive periods for plasticity in the associative neocortex? (2017) · cites this paper as Akther et al., 2015
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References 70 · Cited by 38
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Franklin K. B. J. Paxinos G. (2008). The Mouse Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates Compact 3rd Edn. New York, NY: Academic Press.
- Authors
- Akther, S., Huang, Z., Liang, M., Zhong, J., Fakhrul, A. A. K. M., Yuhi, T., Lopatina, O., Salmina, A. B., Yokoyama, S., Higashida, C., Tsuji, T., Matsuo, M., & Higashida, H.
- Affiliations
- Kanazawa University (JP)
- Krasnoyarsk State Medical University (RU)
- Corresponding author
- Higashida, Haruhiro
- ORCID
- Venue
- Frontiers in Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2015-12-15
- Volume
- 9
- Pages
- 450-450
- ISSN
- 1662-453X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4678232
- OpenAlex
- W2216655538
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 2.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Sexual Differentiation and Disorders
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- paternal behavior, pup retrieval, aromatase, testosterone aromatization, male parental care, aromatase inhibitors, ICR mice
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