2026 Theses Doctoral

Maternal experience alters brain-wide representation of infant cries

McRae, Briana R.

From the moment of giving birth, a mother must quickly adapt to the new demands of motherhood, attending to signals from her offspring and using them to inform her behavior. In mammals, infants often communicate their needs via vocalizations. In human infants, this manifests in the form of baby cries; in mouse infants, or pups, this manifests in the form of ultrasonic vocalizations, or pup calls. Prior work has demonstrated that maternal plasticity in the left primary auditory cortex supports caregiving behavior, enhancing neural and behavioral responses to pup calls. Less is known, however, about whether maternal plasticity regarding pup call perception extends beyond auditory areas.

In this dissertation, I demonstrate that innate and learned maternal experience leads to differences in pup call-evoked behaviors, as well as differences in the brain-wide representation of pup calls. By implementing refined behavioral assays and analysis methods, and by using a combination of behavioral quantification and whole-brain activity mapping, I find that pup calls recruit different brain-wide networks in naïve virgins, experienced virgins, and mothers.

Furthermore, mothers recruit a pup call response network that is sparser, yet stronger, than virgins – perhaps affording mothers the means to respond to pup calls more efficiently. Taken together, the results presented in this dissertation suggest that with maternal experience comes a refinement across the entire brain that supports pup call responses, and thus, promotes offspring survival and maternal well-being.