This project addresses the fundamental question of how the hormonal milieu of pregnancy affects the brain to generate adaptive behavioural changes. It has long been observed that virgin females and mothers behave quite differently: for instance, when presented with infants, virgin female mice typically ignore them, whereas mothers are intensely attracted to infants and will spend most of their waking hours caring for them. It has generally been assumed that the hormonal changes and experiences of giving birth are primarily responsible for this onset of full maternal behaviour, but several observations suggest that these changes might in fact occur earlier, during pregnancy. However, how pregnancy affects the brain to orchestrate changed to behaviours such as parenting, feeding or aggression remains unknown. This project will use state-of-the-art approaches from systems neuroscience to address this question. Our overarching objective is to understand how pregnancy hormones change the form and function of specific neurons and circuits in the brain, esp. those mediating parenting, feeding and aggression, using an approach that can be described as 'Systems Neuroendocrinology', i.e. the use of systems neuroscience approaches to study neuroendocrinological questions Understanding how pregnancy hormones affect the female brain is quite fundamental, since the peripartum period in humans - during which dramatic hormonal fluctuations occur - is associated with a drastically increased risk of postpartum conditions such as depression, anxiety or psychosis. Since the overall mechanisms and hormonal changes are preserved between mice and humans, we hope that our project will eventually lead to translational outcomes.
