On Thursday (02.04) we will host Sebastiano Bariselli, PhD (University of Geneva, Switzerland). His lecture will be entitled: "Dissecting Maternal Behavior: Circuit Mechanisms and Vulnerability to Alcohol". The lecture will take place at 3 p.m. in the CN lecture hall and it will be followed by a get together.

Abstract:

Postpartum alcohol (PPA) relapse disrupts maternal care and alters offspring neurodevelopmental trajectories, yet its underlying neural substrates remain poorly defined. Here, we demonstrate that alcohol exposure during motherhood induces a persistent disorganization of maternal behavioral sequences that is independent of acute intoxication in mice. Using c-Fos–based mapping of maternal brain circuits, we identify a consistent impairment in activity-dependent recruitment during maternal care. Hypothalamic transcriptomic profiling further reveals a coordinated disruption of neuromodulatory peptide systems—including oxytocin (OXT), vasopressin, and corticotropin-releasing factor—while sparing the core GABAergic release machinery. These molecular alterations are accompanied by reduced recruitment of paraventricular nucleus OXT neurons, which correlates with deficits in maternal performance. Importantly, pharmacological restoration of OXT signaling using the brain-penetrant OXTR agonist LIT-001 rescues maternal and anxiety-like behaviors, but not sensorimotor gating impairments. Together, these findings identify hypothalamic OXT circuit dysfunction as a key mechanistic link between postpartum alcohol exposure and impaired maternal care, and reveal dissociable OXT-dependent behavioral domains.