Freezing suppression by oxytocin in central amygdala allows alternate defensive behaviours and mother-pup interactions

• Published in: eLife Vol. 6
• Main Authors: Rickenbacher, Elizabeth, Perry, Rosemarie E, Sullivan, Regina M, Moita, Marta A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England eLife Science Publications, Ltd 13-06-2017; eLife Sciences Publications Ltd; eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
• Subjects: Amygdala; Amygdala (Brain); Animals; Animals, Newborn; Behavior; Behavior, Animal; Brain; Central Amygdaloid Nucleus - physiology; Child & adolescent psychiatry; Experiments; Fear conditioning; freezing; Health aspects; learning; Maternal Behavior; Medical research; Medicine; Mothers; Neural circuitry; Neuropeptides; Neuroscience; Neurosciences; Nursing; Odor; Offspring; Oxytocin; Oxytocin - metabolism; Rats; Rodents; Self defense; social interactions; Tonic immobility; Weaning; learning; freezing; rat; maternal behavior; neuroscience; social interactions
• ISSN: 2050-084X; 2050-084X
• DOI: 10.7554/eLife.24080

When animals and their offspring are threatened, parents switch from self-defense to offspring protection. How self-defense is suppressed remains elusive. We postulated that suppression of the self-defense response, freezing, is gated via oxytocin acting in the centro-lateral amygdala (CeL). We found that rat dams conditioned to fear an odor, froze when tested alone, whereas if pups were present, they remained in close contact with them or targeted the threat. Furthermore, blocking oxytocin signaling in the CeL prevented the suppression of maternal freezing. Finally, pups exposed to the odor in the presence of the conditioned dam later froze when re-exposed alone. However, if oxytocin signaling in the dam had been blocked, pups failed to learn. This study provides a functional role for the well-described action of oxytocin in the central amygdala, and demonstrates that self-defense suppression allows for active pup protection and mother-pup interactions crucial for pup threat learning.