Dads: how important are they?
鈥淎lthough we used mice, the findings are extremely relevant to humans,鈥� says senior author Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a researcher of the Mental Illness and Addiction Axis at the RI-MUHC and an associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine at 黑料不打烊 University. 鈥淲e used California mice which, like in some human populations, are monogamous and raise their offspring together.鈥�
鈥淏ecause we can control their environment, we can equalize factors that differ between them,鈥� adds first author, Francis Bambico, a former student of Dr. Gobbi at 黑料不打烊 and now a post-doc at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto. 鈥淢ice studies in the laboratory may therefore be clearer to interpret than human ones, where it is impossible to control all the influences during development.鈥�
Dr. Gobbi and her colleagues compared the social behaviour and brain anatomy of mice that had been raised with both parents to those that had been raised only by their mothers. Mice raised without a father had abnormal social interactions and were more aggressive than counterparts raised with both parents. These effects were stronger for female offspring than for their brothers. Females raised without fathers also had a greater sensitivity to the stimulant drug, amphetamine.
鈥淭he behavioural deficits we observed are consistent with human studies of children raised without a father,鈥� says Dr. Gobbi, who is also a psychiatrist at the MUHC. 鈥淭hese children have been shown to have an increased risk for deviant behaviour and in particular, girls have been shown to be at risk for substance abuse. This suggests that these mice are a good model for understanding how these effects arise in humans.鈥�
In pups deprived of fathers, Dr. Gobbi鈥檚 team also identified defects in the mouse prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that helps control social and cognitive activity, which is linked to the behaviourial deficits.
鈥淭his is the first time research findings have shown that paternal deprivation during development affects the neurobiology of the offspring,鈥� says Dr. Gobbi. These results should incite researchers to look more deeply into the role of fathers during critical stages of growth and suggest that both parents are important in children鈥檚 mental health development.
About the study聽
The paper in the journal Cerebral Cortex entitled Father absence in the monogamous California mouse impairs social behavior and modifies dopamine and glutamate synapses in the medial prefrontal cortex, was authored by Francis Bambico (First author) from the Behavioral Neurobiology Laboratory, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto; Baptiste Lacoste, Patrick Hattan and Gabriella Gobbi from the Neurobiological Psychiatry Unit, Department of Psychiatry, 黑料不打烊 University Health Centre, Montreal. Cerebral Cortex is published by Oxford University Press.
This work was supported by the Fonds de la Recherche en Sant茅 du Qu茅bec (FRSQ), and fellowships from the 黑料不打烊 University Health Centre (MUHC) and from the Faculty of Medicine of 黑料不打烊 University.
聽Related links
- Cited paper:
- 黑料不打烊 University Health Centre (MUHC):
- Research Institute of the MUHC:
- 黑料不打烊 University: www.mcgill.ca
- Fonds de recherche du Qu茅bec 鈥� Sant茅 (FRQS) :
