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Addictive Behaviors Apr 2020Parent substance use is a risk factor early adolescents' substance use. Theoretical models of deviance and general substance use risk may not apply to risk-transmission...
BACKGROUND
Parent substance use is a risk factor early adolescents' substance use. Theoretical models of deviance and general substance use risk may not apply to risk-transmission pathways involving parents' prescription opioid misuse (POM) and child outcomes. Thus, we examined predictions of children's alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana (ATM) use in early adolescence, from parental POM, delinquency, depressive symptoms, and ATM use.
METHOD
Children (n = 216; 121 female) participated from early childhood to ages 11-12 or 13-14 years with their 111 fathers and 136 mothers. At all available waves, self-reports were collected on each parents' POM, ATM, prescription opioid use (POU), depressive symptoms, and delinquent behavior, and children's ATM use.
RESULTS
Poisson regressions were run separately by parent, controlled for child age and gender and paternal age at child's birth, and accounted for clustering of children in families. Child ATM use was predicted by paternal POM, but the effect was better explained by paternal ATM use, which was a stronger effect in families with higher father-child residential contact. In contrast and unexpectedly, mothers' POU but not POM predicted child ATM use, and the effect was not explained by the significant predictions from maternal ATM use and delinquency.
CONCLUSION
Fathers' POM and mothers' POU predicted child ATM use by early adolescence. Findings generally were consistent with parent-child risk-transmission processes described for other substances. Resident fathers' substance use and multiple maternal risk factors are worthy foci for prevention of the intergenerational transmission of substance use.
Topics: Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Adult; Analgesics, Opioid; Child; Child, Preschool; Female; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Maternal Behavior; Parent-Child Relations; Paternal Behavior; Prescription Drug Misuse; Prescription Drugs; Substance-Related Disorders; United States
PubMed: 31862621
DOI: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2019.106248 -
Evolution; International Journal of... Jul 2022Paternal age and past mating effort by males are often confounded, which can affect our understanding of a father's age effects. To our knowledge, only a few studies...
Paternal age and past mating effort by males are often confounded, which can affect our understanding of a father's age effects. To our knowledge, only a few studies have standardized mating history when testing for effects of paternal age, and none has simultaneously disentangled how paternal age and mating history might jointly influence offspring traits. Here, we experimentally manipulated male mating history to tease apart its effects from those of paternal age on female fertility and offspring traits in the eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki). Male age did not affect female fertility. However, males with greater past mating effort produced significantly larger broods. Paternal age and mating history interacted to affect sons' body size: sons sired by old-virgin males were larger than those sired by old-mated males, but this was not the case for younger fathers. Intriguingly, however, sons sired by old-virgin males tended to produce fewer sperms than those sired by old-mated males, indicating a potential trade-off in beneficial paternal effects. Finally, neither paternal age nor mating history affected daughter's fitness. Our results highlight that variation in offspring traits attributed to paternal age effect could partly arise due to a father's mating history, and not simply to his chronological age.
Topics: Animals; Cyprinodontiformes; Female; Male; Paternal Age; Paternal Inheritance; Reproduction; Sexual Behavior, Animal
PubMed: 35544673
DOI: 10.1111/evo.14498 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Nov 2022Parental care is critical for successful reproduction in mammals. Recent work has implicated the hormone prolactin in regulating male parental behavior, similar to its...
Parental care is critical for successful reproduction in mammals. Recent work has implicated the hormone prolactin in regulating male parental behavior, similar to its established role in females. Male laboratory mice show a mating-induced suppression of infanticide (normally observed in virgins) and onset of paternal behavior 2 weeks after mating. Using this model, we sought to investigate how prolactin acts in the forebrain to regulate paternal behavior. First, using c-fos immunoreactivity in prolactin receptor (Prlr) -IRES-Cre-tdtomato reporter mouse sires, we show that the circuitry activated during paternal interactions contains prolactin-responsive neurons in multiple sites, including the medial preoptic nucleus, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and medial amygdala. Next, we deleted from three prominent cell types found in these regions: glutamatergic, GABAergic, and CaMKIIα. Prlr deletion from CaMKIIα, but not glutamatergic or GABAergic cells, had a profound effect on paternal behavior as none of these KO males completed the pup-retrieval task. Prolactin was increased during mating, but not in response to pups, suggesting that the mating-induced secretion of prolactin is important for establishing the switch from infanticidal to paternal behavior. Pharmacological blockade of prolactin secretion at mating, however, had no effect on paternal behavior. In contrast, suppressing prolactin secretion at the time of pup exposure resulted in failure to retrieve pups, with exogenous prolactin administration rescuing this behavior. Together, our data show that paternal behavior in sires is dependent on basal levels of circulating prolactin acting at the time of interaction with pups, mediated through Prlr on CaMKIIα-expressing neurons. Parental care is critical for offspring survival. Compared with maternal care, however, the neurobiology of paternal care is less well understood. Here we show that the hormone prolactin, which is most well known for its female-specific role in lactation, has a role in the male brain to promote paternal behavior. In the absence of prolactin signaling specifically during interactions with pups, father mice fail to show normal retrieval behavior of pups. These data demonstrate that prolactin has a similar action in both males and females to promote parental care.
Topics: Animals; Female; Male; Mice; Brain; Maternal Behavior; Paternal Behavior; Preoptic Area; Prolactin; Receptors, Prolactin
PubMed: 36163141
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0558-22.2022 -
Developmental Psychobiology Jul 2021Care of infants is a hallmark of mammals. Whereas parental care by mothers is obligatory for offspring survival in virtually all mammals, fathers provide care for their... (Review)
Review
Care of infants is a hallmark of mammals. Whereas parental care by mothers is obligatory for offspring survival in virtually all mammals, fathers provide care for their offspring in only an estimated 5%-10% of genera. In these species, the transition into fatherhood is often accompanied by pronounced changes in males' behavioral responses to young, including a reduction in aggression toward infants and an increase in nurturant behavior. The onset of fatherhood can also be associated with sensory, affective, and cognitive changes. The neuroplasticity that mediates these changes is not well understood; however, fatherhood can alter the production and survival of new neurons; function and structure of existing neurons; morphology of brain structures; and neuroendocrine signaling systems. Although these changes are thought to promote infant care by fathers, very little evidence exists to support this hypothesis; in most cases, neither the mechanisms underlying neuroplasticity in fathers nor its functional significance is known. In this paper, we review the available data on the neuroplasticity that occurs during the transition into fatherhood. We highlight gaps in our knowledge and future directions that will provide key insights into how and why fatherhood alters the structure and functioning of the male brain.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Fathers; Humans; Male; Mammals; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Paternal Behavior
PubMed: 33480062
DOI: 10.1002/dev.22097 -
Developmental Psychobiology Jul 2021With the consolidation of fathers' engagement in caregiving, understanding the neuroendocrine and hormonal mechanisms underlying fatherhood becomes a relevant topic.... (Review)
Review
With the consolidation of fathers' engagement in caregiving, understanding the neuroendocrine and hormonal mechanisms underlying fatherhood becomes a relevant topic. Oxytocin (OT) has been linked with maternal bonding and caregiving, but less is known about the role of OT in human fatherhood and paternal caregiving. A systematic review of methods and findings of previous OT research in human fathers was carried. The literature search on PubMed and Scopus yielded 133 records. Twenty-four studies were included and analyzed. Significant variability emerged in OT methodology, including laboratory tasks, assessment methods, and outcome measures. Fathers' OT levels appear to increase after childbirth. OT was significantly correlated with less hostility and with the quality of paternal physical stimulation in play interactions, but not with paternal sensitivity. Fathers' and children's OT levels were significantly correlated in a limited subset of studies, intriguingly suggesting that cross-generational OT regulation may occur during the early years of life. This study highlights relevant issues and limitations of peripheral OT assessment in human subjects, especially in fathers. Although the study of paternal neuroendocrinology appears promising, coping with these issues requires dedicated efforts and methodological suggestions are provided to guide future advances in this field.
Topics: Child; Fathers; Humans; Male; Object Attachment; Oxytocin; Parenting; Paternal Behavior
PubMed: 33694219
DOI: 10.1002/dev.22116 -
The EMBO Journal Nov 2015Paternal behavior is not innate but arises through social experience. After mating and becoming fathers, male mice change their behavior toward pups from infanticide to...
Paternal behavior is not innate but arises through social experience. After mating and becoming fathers, male mice change their behavior toward pups from infanticide to paternal care. However, the precise brain areas and circuit mechanisms connecting these social behaviors are largely unknown. Here we demonstrated that the c-Fos expression pattern in the four nuclei of the preoptic-bed nuclei of stria terminalis (BST) region could robustly discriminate five kinds of previous social behavior of male mice (parenting, infanticide, mating, inter-male aggression, solitary control). Specifically, neuronal activation in the central part of the medial preoptic area (cMPOA) and rhomboid nucleus of the BST (BSTrh) retroactively detected paternal and infanticidal motivation with more than 95% accuracy. Moreover, cMPOA lesions switched behavior in fathers from paternal to infanticidal, while BSTrh lesions inhibited infanticide in virgin males. The projections from cMPOA to BSTrh were largely GABAergic. Optogenetic or pharmacogenetic activation of cMPOA attenuated infanticide in virgin males. Taken together, this study identifies the preoptic-BST nuclei underlying social motivations in male mice and reveals unexpected complexity in the circuit connecting these nuclei.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Brain Mapping; GABAergic Neurons; Male; Mice; Paternal Behavior; Preoptic Area; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos
PubMed: 26423604
DOI: 10.15252/embj.201591942 -
Scientific Reports Jul 2023In socially monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), parental behaviors not only occur in mothers and fathers, but also exist in some virgin males. In contrast,...
In socially monogamous prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), parental behaviors not only occur in mothers and fathers, but also exist in some virgin males. In contrast, the other virgin males display aggressive behaviors towards conspecific pups. However, little is known about the molecular underpinnings of this behavioral dichotomy, such as gene expression changes and their regulatory mechanisms. To address this, we profiled the transcriptome and DNA methylome of hippocampal dentate gyrus of four prairie vole groups, namely attacker virgin males, parental virgin males, fathers, and mothers. While we found a concordant gene expression pattern between parental virgin males and fathers, the attacker virgin males have a more deviated transcriptome. Moreover, numerous DNA methylation changes were found in pair-wise comparisons among the four groups. We found some DNA methylation changes overlapping with transcription differences, across gene-bodies and promoter regions. Furthermore, the gene expression changes and methylome alterations are selectively enriched in certain biological pathways, such as Wnt signaling, which suggest a canonical transcription regulatory role of DNA methylation in paternal behavior. Therefore, our study presents an integrated view of prairie vole dentate gyrus transcriptome and epigenome that provides a DNA epigenetic based molecular insight of paternal behavior.
Topics: Male; Animals; Paternal Behavior; DNA Methylation; Grassland; Hippocampus; Arvicolinae; Dentate Gyrus; Social Behavior
PubMed: 37419920
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-37521-2 -
Science (New York, N.Y.) Aug 2014Parents know the transformative nature of having and caring for a child. Among many mammals, giving birth leads from an aversion to infant stimuli to irresistible... (Review)
Review
Parents know the transformative nature of having and caring for a child. Among many mammals, giving birth leads from an aversion to infant stimuli to irresistible attraction. Here, we review the biological mechanisms governing this shift in parental motivation in mammals. Estrogen and progesterone prepare the uterus for embryo implantation and placental development. Prolactin stimulates milk production, whereas oxytocin initiates labor and triggers milk ejection during nursing. These same molecules, interacting with dopamine, also activate specific neural pathways to motivate parents to nurture, bond with, and protect their offspring. Parenting in turn shapes the neural development of the infant social brain. Recent work suggests that many of the principles governing parental behavior and its effect on infant development are conserved from rodent to humans.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Child Development; Dopamine; Female; Hormones; Humans; Infant; Male; Mammals; Maternal Behavior; Oxytocin; Parenting; Paternal Behavior; Social Change
PubMed: 25124431
DOI: 10.1126/science.1252723 -
Genes Mar 2020Olfaction is the dominant sensory modality in rodents, and is crucial for regulating social behaviors, including parental care. Paternal care is rare in rodents, but can... (Review)
Review
Olfaction is the dominant sensory modality in rodents, and is crucial for regulating social behaviors, including parental care. Paternal care is rare in rodents, but can have significant consequences for offspring fitness, suggesting a need to understand the factors that regulate its expression. Pup-related odor cues are critical for the onset and maintenance of paternal care. Here, I consider the role of olfaction in the expression of paternal care in rodents. The medial preoptic area shares neural projections with the olfactory and accessory olfactory bulbs, which are responsible for the interpretation of olfactory cues detected by the main olfactory and vomeronasal systems. The olfactory, trace amine, membrane-spanning 4-pass A, vomeronasal 1, vomeronasal 2 and formyl peptide receptors are all involved in olfactory detection. I highlight the roles that 10 olfactory genes play in the expression of direct paternal care behaviors, acknowledging that this list is not exhaustive. Many of these genes modulate parental aggression towards intruders, and facilitate the recognition and discrimination of pups in general. Much of our understanding comes from studies on non-naturally paternal laboratory rodents. Future studies should explore what role these genes play in the regulation and expression of paternal care in naturally biparental species.
Topics: Animals; Olfactory Perception; Paternal Behavior; Receptors, Odorant; Rodentia; Smell
PubMed: 32164379
DOI: 10.3390/genes11030292 -
Neuroscience Mar 2022It is well established that the damaging effects of drugs of abuse, such as cocaine, can extend beyond the user to their offspring. While most preclinical models of the...
It is well established that the damaging effects of drugs of abuse, such as cocaine, can extend beyond the user to their offspring. While most preclinical models of the generational effects of cocaine abuse have focused on maternal effects, we, and others, report distinct effects on offspring sired by fathers treated with cocaine prior to breeding. However, little is known about the effects of paternal cocaine use on first generation (F1) offspring's social behaviors. Here, we expand upon our model of oral self-administered paternal cocaine use to address the idea that paternal cocaine alters first generation offspring social behaviors through modulation of the oxytocin system. F1 cocaine-sired males displayed unaltered social recognition vs. non-cocaine sired controls but showed increased investigation times that were not related to altered olfaction. Paternal cocaine did not alter F1 male-aggression behavior or depression-like behaviors, but cocaine-sired males did display decreased anxiety-like behaviors. Female F1 behavior was similarly examined, but there were no effects of paternal cocaine. Cocaine-sired male mice also exhibited localized oxytocin receptor expression differences vs. controls in several brain regions regulating social behavior. These results provide evidence for effects of paternal cocaine exposure on social behaviors in male offspring with associated alterations in central oxytocin transmission.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Cocaine; Fathers; Female; Humans; Male; Mice; Oxytocin; Paternal Behavior; Receptors, Oxytocin; Social Behavior
PubMed: 35063583
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2022.01.010