Parenting in the animal world: Turning off the infanticide instinct
Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - 10:20
in Biology & Nature
Many bachelor mammals, including lions, mountain gorillas, monkeys, and mice, attack and kill the offspring of other males--a form of infanticide--yet display parental behavior once they themselves become fathers. Now, scientists in Japan have discovered two small brain regions that control which of these very opposite behaviors a male mouse will exhibit. The experiments show how activity patterns in two forebrain regions determine whether males have the urge to act paternally towards mouse pups or to attack them.