Elucidation of the mechanism of sociality development by motherhood factors

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26292167
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Partial Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Integrative animal science
• Research Institution: Azabu University
• Principal Investigator: Mogi Kazutaka 麻布大学, 獣医学部, 准教授 (50347308)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 守口 徹 麻布大学, 生命・環境科学部, 教授 (10512006)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): KIKUSUI Takefumi 麻布大学, 獣医学部, 教授 (90302596)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 社会行動 / 母子関係 / 発達 / オキシトシン / 帯状回皮質 / 社会認知 / 人工哺乳

Outline of Final Research Achievements

It has been known that good relationship between infant and mother ensures adequate development of offspring’s sociality. We investigated the underlying mechanism by using mouse model. We firstly revealed that mother mice could distinguish their own pups from alien pups. Conversely, mice pups could also distinguish mothers, suggesting the existence of mother-infant bond in mice. We next focused on oxytocin, which has known as an important hormone for sociality, and found that the oxytocin action in neonatal period developed the offspring’s ability for social recognition or memory. The oxytocin release to cingulate cortex in infant was upregulated by the contact with mother. If this was blocked in infant, the neural activity on the cingulate cortex in adulthood was not normal when meeting with other mice. We also found that artificially reared mice exhibited lower maternal behavior in adulthood. We discovered crucial clues to understand the mechanism for development of sociality.

Free Research Field

行動神経科学