Neural plasticity supporting parental behaviors

Abstract

Becoming a parent involves extraordinary changes that allow caregivers to attend to and nurture infants. Neural circuits must adapt to the demands of caregiving to orchestrate various complex nurturing behaviors. These changes occur between two opposing circuits: a circuit primed for the expression of parenting to execute caregiving, and a circuit that suppresses this behavioral expression when the timing is not appropriate. In this review, we provide an overview of the neural circuits supporting the positive and negative control of parental behaviors and discuss mechanisms by which these opposing circuits are altered to facilitate the onset of parental care.