Functional circuit architecture underlying parental behaviour

Parenting is essential for the survival and wellbeing of mammalian offspring but we lack a circuit-level understanding of how distinct components of this behaviour are orchestrated. Here we investigate how Galanin-expressing neurons in the medial preoptic area (MPOA(Gal)) coordinate motor, motivational, hormonal and social aspects of parenting. These neurons integrate inputs from a large number of brain areas, whose activation depends on the animal’s sex and reproductive state. Subsets of MPOA(Gal) neurons form discrete pools defined by their projection sites. While the MPOA(Gal) population is active during all episodes of parental behaviour, individual pools are tuned to characteristic aspects of parenting. Optogenetic manipulation of MPOA(Gal) projections mirrors this specificity, affecting discrete parenting components. This functional organization, reminiscent of the control of motor sequences by pools of spinal cord neurons, provides a new model for how discrete elements of a social behaviour are generated at the circuit level.