Progesterone receptors mediate male aggression toward infants

AUTOR(ES)

Schneider, Johanna S.

FONTE

The National Academy of Sciences

RESUMO

Neuroendocrine mechanisms that mediate male aggression toward infants are poorly understood. Although testosterone is known to enhance aggression in other social contexts, evidence that it modulates aggression toward infants is equivocal. We have found that male progesterone receptor knockout (PRKO) mice exhibit no infanticidal behavior and little aggression toward young. Male PRKO mice also display significantly enhanced parental behaviors. In wild-type mice, blockade of PR induces a behavioral phenotype similar to that of the PRKO males, whereas progesterone exacerbates aggressive tendencies toward infants. Aggressive behaviors directed toward adult males, by contrast, are unaffected by progesterone, PR antagonism, or PR gene deletion. Previously thought to be of diminished importance in male animals, PRs play a critical and specific role in modulating infant-directed behaviors in male mice.

Documentos Relacionados

• Synthetic pheromones that promote inter-male aggression in mice.
• Stromal Progesterone Receptors Mediate Induction of Indian Hedgehog (IHH) in Uterine Epithelium and Its Downstream Targets in Uterine Stroma
• Monoclonal antibodies to rabbit progesterone receptor: crossreaction with other mammalian progesterone receptors.
• Regulation of T cell activation, anxiety, and male aggression by RGS2
• Brain serotonin dysfunction accounts for aggression in male mice lacking neuronal nitric oxide synthase