ArticleJournal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology2015
Natural variation in paternal behavior is associated with central estrogen receptor alpha and oxytocin levels.
Article in Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- A holistic review of fatherhood in humans and non-human animals: mechanisms of fatherhood, effects on fathers themselves, and interactions of fathers with others.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Brain aromatase and its relationship with parental experience and behavior in male mice.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- The neurobiology of parenting and infant-evoked aggression.Physiological reviews · 2025Review
- Parental Behavior in Rodents.Advances in neurobiology · 2022Article
- Different behavioral, neural and neuropeptide responses of fathers to their own and to alien pups in mandarin voles.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2018Article
- Paternal Care in Biparental Rodents: Intra- and Inter-individual Variation.Integrative and comparative biology · 2017Review
- Fathering in rodents: Neurobiological substrates and consequences for offspring.Hormones and behavior · 2016Review
- Disruption of parenting behaviors in california mice, a monogamous rodent species, by endocrine disrupting chemicals.PloS one · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In monogamous mammals paternal care plays an important role in the neural and behavioral development of offspring. However, the neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying paternal behavior remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the association between natural variation in paternal responsiveness and central levels of oxytocin (OT) and estrogen receptor alpha (ERα). We used the frequency of licking and grooming behavior to distinguish low paternal responsiveness and high paternal responsiveness in virgin mandarin voles (Microtus mandarinus). Males that engaged in high paternal behavior had elevated levels of OT immunoreactive neurons in the paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus and supraoptic nuclei of the hypothalamus compared with males that displayed low paternal behavior. Likewise, males of high paternal responsiveness had more ERα immunoreactive neurons in the medial preoptic area, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus and medial amygdaloid nucleus compared to low responsive males. The level of ERα immunoreactive neurons in the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus was lower in highly paternal males compared to less paternal males. These results suggest that natural variation in paternal responsiveness may be directly related to variation in central OT and ERα.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.