New study shows fathers of cute male mice share a genetic signature
New research on African striped rats finds that the tendency to care may be rooted in a specific gene
Paternal care is rare in mammals, but male African striped rats can be loving fathers.
C. Todd Reichart/Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University
In the animal kingdom, affectionate fathers are rare: Research shows that fewer than 3 to 5 percent of mammalian fathers take an active role in raising their offspring. But some people appear to be more amenable to parenting than others, at least in part due to their neurobiology.
according to a new study On African striped rats, a single gene may play a large role in parental care in male rats. By studying the brains of males of the species, researchers found that more aggressive males have higher expression of a gene called agouti Compared to those who were caring for the young rats more. The researchers found that activating the gene in care-giving mice made them more aggressive toward the pups.
Interestingly, mice that lived in groups were more likely to agouti The expression, compared to male rats living alone, suggests that aspects of the rat’s environment — such as resource scarcity or population levels — may play a role in his tendency to care, explains Forrest Rogers, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University and lead author of the study.
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A key finding from the study is that male mice “have what it takes to be good fathers,” says Katherine Pena, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Princeton University and senior author of the study.
“We didn’t find that he needed new circuitry,” she says. “We didn’t find that there was any unique development of cells in his brain that he needed to become a father.”
Rather, their findings suggest that “there may be optimal conditions to help promote one’s best parenting,” she says.
This research was published in the journal on Wednesday Nature.
African striped rats, like humans, are among the few mammals for which males typically act as caregivers to young—at least to some extent. In the wild, male rats can be seen caring for pups or providing them with food. But some people seem to lack this instinct altogether and ignore or even kill their puppies.
“This study is an important step forward in the field of parenting behavior and its brain origins,” says Christian Broberger, professor of neurochemistry at Stockholm University in Sweden. The neurobiology of maternal parenting has been relatively well studied, says Broberger, but “very little” is known about paternal parenting. that discovery agoutiThat a gene known to have a role in pigmentation and metabolism — could play a role in the ancestral predisposition — was a “surprise,” he says.
The results provide clues to the possible neurobiology that drives male mammals’ attraction to their offspring, although the study was obviously limited to rats. Peña says the findings do not speak to human fathers or indicate that there may be “any magic pill for parenting.”
But future research may uncover whether other species also share similar neurobiology.
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