Meeting Abstract
In stable environments, parents able to transmit information such as predation risk should have offspring that are pre-adapted to the environment they will encounter as adults. While intergenerational epigenetic transmission of paternal experience has been demonstrated in mammals, whether paternal perception of predation risk can alter offspring phenotypes has not been investigated. We exposed male mice to a predator odor (2-4-5-trimethylthiazoline, TMT) and measured offspring behavioral phenotypes throughout development as well as adult neural gene expression and stress reactivity. We predicted that offspring of males exposed to TMT would exhibit decreased activity and increased anxiety-like behaviors relative to controls because these behaviors are analogous to anti-predator behaviors in the wild. Unexpectedly, we found that offspring of TMT-exposed males tend to be more active and exhibit fewer anxiety-like behaviors relative to controls. In the prefrontal cortex, we found evidence of increased relative expression of the mineralocorticoid receptor (Nr3c2) in experimental offspring. Additionally, offspring of TMT-exposed males exhibited decreased baseline plasma CORT relative to controls. These results suggest that fathers exposed to predation threat produce offspring that are bolder and, potentially, more likely to flee than freeze when predators are present. Importantly, this study provides evidence that ecologically relevant paternal experience can influence offspring phenotypes.
