ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2022
Prolactin-mediated restraint of maternal aggression in lactation.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural circuits for mammalian parental behaviour.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Prolactin receptor signalling contributes to the attenuation of stress-induced hyperthermia during pregnancy.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Perinatal women dominantly protect-rather than submissively cede-resources when interacting with threatening-looking others.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2026Article
- A prolactin-receptive neural circuit drives maternal interactions with pups in mice.Science advances · 2026Article
- The hormonal and neural control of maternal aggression.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2026Review
- Maternal aggression driven by the transient mobilisation of a dormant hormone-sensitive circuit.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A long-lasting prolactin stimulates galactopoiesis in mice.iScience · 2025Article
- When Your Body Tells You to Not Breastfeed-The Connivance of Oxytocin, Prolactin, and Dopamine.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- CART Neurons in the Hypothalamic Ventral Premammillary Nucleus (PMv) in Rats Mediate Maternal, But Not Inter-male Aggression.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Suppression of hypothalamic oestrogenic signal sustains hyperprolactinemia and metabolic adaptation in lactating mice.Nature metabolism · 2025Article
- The ventral premammillary nucleus at the interface of environmental cues and social behaviors.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- The neurobiology of parenting and infant-evoked aggression.Physiological reviews · 2025Review
- Prolactin: structure, receptors, and functions.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2024Review
- Hormonal Actions in the Medial Preoptic Area Governing Parental Behavior: Novel Insights From New Tools.Endocrinology · 2024Review
- Placenta-derived SOD3 deletion impairs maternal behavior via alterations in FGF/FGFR-prolactin signaling axis.Cell reports · 2024Article
- Enhanced pup retrieval behaviour in a mouse model of polycystic ovary syndrome.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Neuroendocrine regulation of female aggression.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Aggressive behavior is rarely observed in virgin female mice but is specifically triggered in lactation where it facilitates protection of offspring. Recent studies demonstrated that the hypothalamic ventromedial nucleus (VMN) plays an important role in facilitating aggressive behavior in both sexes. Here, we demonstrate a role for the pituitary hormone, prolactin, acting through the prolactin receptor in the VMN to control the intensity of aggressive behavior exclusively during lactation. Prolactin receptor deletion from glutamatergic neurons or specifically from the VMN resulted in hyperaggressive lactating females, with a marked shift from intruder-directed investigative behavior to very high levels of aggressive behavior. Prolactin-sensitive neurons in the VMN project to a wide range of other hypothalamic and extrahypothalamic regions, including the medial preoptic area, paraventricular nucleus, and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, all regions known to be part of a complex neuronal network controlling maternal behavior. Within this network, prolactin acts in the VMN to specifically restrain male-directed aggressive behavior in lactating females. This action in the VMN may complement the role of prolactin in other brain regions, by shifting the balance of maternal behaviors from defense-related activities to more pup-directed behaviors necessary for nurturing offspring.
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