Meeting Abstract
The extent to which parental care is critical for offspring survival varies among species. Japanese quail are precocial birds, but parental behavior is still critical during the first few weeks post-hatch as chicks can die from hypothermia if not kept warm by parents. Interestingly, as Japanese quail have been selected for egg production, most captive-bred quail do not exhibit spontaneous parental behavior. Previous research, however, has shown that induction of parental care in this species can be done through a process of overnight sensitization to chicks. We used this model to study the neurogenomic alterations associated with the transition to parental care behavior in birds with no reproductive experience. To do this, we compared the transcriptome of quails exposed to chicks overnight to that of control (no overnight exposure) birds in three brain regions (hypothalamus, BNST and Tn). To confirm that the induction worked, we observed all adults in the presence of new chicks for 20 min the morning after sensitization and quantified parental and aggressive behaviors. We found an upregulation of Urocortin 3 (Ucn3) in the hypothalamus of sensitized animals of both sexes relative to controls, while Neurotensin (NT) was upregulated only in sensitized females, and Btg2 downregulated only in sensitized males. In mammals, UCN3 seems to potentiate the neuroendocrine response to stress and to have a role in social memory. NT is linked to rodent maternal care and is upregulated in hypothalamic regions of postpartum mice. BTG2 may be involved in neuroplasticity. As these peptides have not previously been associated with modulation of parental behaviors in birds, our work may therefore contribute to the discovery of novel potential modulators of avian parental care.
