ArticleThe Journal of comparative neurology2016
Individual differences in cortical connections of somatosensory cortex are associated with parental rearing style in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster).
Article in The Journal of comparative neurology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Demographic History of a Prairie Vole (Microtus ochrogaster) Breeding Colony (2004-2020).Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2026Article
- A Demographic History of a Prairie Vole (bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Organization of the Perioral Representation of the Primary Somatosensory Cortex in Prairie Voles (Brain, behavior and evolution · 2025Article
- Compositional variation in early-life parenting structures alters oxytocin and vasopressin 1a receptor development in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster).Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2021Article
- A Neuroscientist's Guide to the Vole.Current protocols · 2021Article
- Genomic Resources for the North American Water Vole (GigaByte (Hong Kong, China) · 2021Article
- Early postnatal gene expression in the developing neocortex of prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) is related to parental rearing style.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2020Article
- Is Oxytocin "Nature's Medicine"?Pharmacological reviews · 2020Review
- The developmental support hypothesis: adaptive plasticity in neural development in response to cues of social support.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Revisiting paternal absence: Female alloparental replacement of fathers recovers partner preference formation in female, but not male prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster).Developmental psychobiology · 2020Article
- Prairie vole offspring only prefer mothers over fathers when mothers are a unique resource, yet fathers are the primary source of variation in parental care.Behavioural processes · 2020Article
- The Role of Affectionate Caregiver Touch in Early Neurodevelopment and Parent-Infant Interactional Synchrony.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Review
- Childhood Adversity and Affective Touch Perception: A Comparison of United Kingdom Care Leavers and Non-care Leavers.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Social touch and human development.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2019Review
- Intranasal oxytocin reduces weight gain in diet-induced obese prairie voles.Physiology & behavior · 2018Article
- Longitudinal Trajectories and Inter-parental Dynamics of Prairie Vole Biparental Care.Frontiers in ecology and evolution · 2018Article
- Parenting in Animals.Current opinion in psychology · 2017Article
- Localization of oxytocin receptors in the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) neocortex.Neuroscience · 2017Article
- Intergenerational transmission of sociality: the role of parents in shaping social behavior in monogamous and non-monogamous species.The Journal of experimental biology · 2017Review
- The Oxytocin-Vasopressin Pathway in the Context of Love and Fear.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Early-life sensory experiences have a profound effect on brain organization, connectivity, and subsequent behavior. In most mammals, the earliest sensory inputs are delivered to the developing brain through tactile contact with the parents, especially the mother. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) are monogamous and, like humans, are biparental. Within the normal prairie vole population, both the type and the amount of interactions, particularly tactile contact, that parents have with their offspring vary. The question is whether these early and pervasive differences in tactile stimulation and social experience between parent and offspring are manifest in differences in cortical organization and connectivity. To address this question, we examined the cortical and callosal connections of the primary somatosensory area (S1) in high-contact (HC) and low-contact (LC) offspring using neuroanatomical tracing techniques. Injection sites within S1 were matched so that direct comparisons between these two groups could be made. We observed several important differences between these groups. The first was that HC offspring had a greater density of intrinsic connections within S1 compared with LC offspring. Additionally, HC offspring had a more restricted pattern of ipsilateral connections, whereas LC offspring had dense connections with areas of parietal and frontal cortex that were more widespread. Finally, LC offspring had a broader distribution of callosal connections than HC offspring and a significantly higher percentage of labeled callosal neurons. This study is the first to examine individual differences in cortical connections and suggests that individual differences in cortical connections may be related to natural differences in parental rearing styles associated with tactile contact.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.