From Here to Paternity: Effects of Parenthood on Fathers in a Biparental Rodent
Speaker
Dr. Wendy SaltzmaLocation
MSRB AuditoriumInfo
Dr. Saltzman’s research focuses broadly on the integrative biology of biparental care. Her lab uses the monogamous California mouse (*Peromyscus californicus*), a species in which, unlike the vast majority of mammals, both parents invest extensively in raising their offspring. One major theme of her lab’s work is the effects of parenthood on parents’ morphology, physiology, and behavior. For example, how does being a mother or father affect a parent’s body fat reserves, organ sizes, energetics, metabolism, stress physiology, neural activity, and affective behavior? Are these effects influenced by the absence of the mate, litter size, parity, or environmental stressors? A second major theme is proximate determinants of parental care. How are the onset and maintenance of maternal and paternal behavior influenced by the parents’ age, prior experience with pups, stress, sensory cues, specific neurotransmitters/hormones, and certain brain regions?
