My lab studies the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying sexual differentiation of vasopressin synthesis and release. We also study the functional significance of sex differences in this exquisitely hormone-sensitive system, focusing on its role in parental behavior. Our approach is multidisciplinary. We have used, for example, neuronal tract-tracing, immunocytochemistry, in-situ hybridization, neural transplants, injections of psychopharmaca, and various developmental manipulations to answer these questions. Although most of our studies have been done in rats, we now use mainly mice and voles; mice because they allow us to explore the function of individual genes; voles, because they allow us to test the role of sex difference in neural structure in parental behavior, which is readily displayed by male and female prairie voles.
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The epigenetics of sex differences in the brain (with M. M. McCarthy, A. P. Auger, T. L. Bale, G. A. Dunn, N. G. Forger, E. K. Murray, B. M. Nugent, J. M. Schwarz, and M. E. Wilson), Journal of Neuroscience (2009)
Epigenetic changes in the nervous system are emerging as a critical component of enduring effects...
Epigenetic control of sexual differentiation of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (with E. K. Murray, A. Hien, and N. G. Forger), Endocrinology (2009)
The principal nucleus of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNSTp) is larger in...
Social control of brain morphology in a eusocial mammal (with M. M. Holmes, G. J. Rosen, C. L. Jordan, B. D. goldman, and N. G. Forger), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (2007)
Social status impacts reproductive behavior in diverse vertebrate species, but little is known about how...
Unexpected effects of perinatal gonadal hormone manipulations on sexual differentiation of the extrahypothalamic arginine-vasopressin system in prairie voles (with J. S. Lonstein and B. D. Rood), Endocrinology (2005)
The sexually dimorphic extrahypothalamic arginine-vasopressin (AVP) projections from the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis...
Deletion of Bax eliminates sex differences in the mouse forebrain (with N. G. Forger, G. J. Rosen, E. M. Waters, D. Jacobs, and R. B. Simerly), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (2004)
Several of the best-studied sex differences in the mammalian brain are ascribed to the hormonal...