Integration of hunger and hormonal state gates infant-directed aggression.

ABSTRACT: Social behaviour is substantially shaped by internal physiological states. Although progress has been made in understanding how individual states such as hunger, stress or arousal modulate behaviour^1-9, animals experience multiple states at any given time¹⁰. The neural mechanisms that integrate such orthogonal states-and how this integration affects behaviour-remain poorly understood. Here we report how hunger and oestrous state converge on neurons in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) to shape infant-directed behaviour. We find that hunger promotes pup-directed aggression in normally non-aggressive virgin female mice. This behavioural switch occurs through the inhibition of MPOA neurons, driven by the release of neuropeptide Y from Agouti-related peptide-expressing neur

SUBMITTER: Cao M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12675289 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature