Stephen C. Gammie

Neuronal Circuitries Underlying Maternal Behaviors in Rodents

E-mail: scgammie@wisc.edu

Research Strengths: Behavior: Cognition and Emotion, Neural Circuits

My research focuses on understanding the neural circuitry that underlies different maternal behaviors in rodents. In a wide range of mammals, mothers are highly protective when their offspring are young and vulnerable. As part of this protective behavior, lactating females will often express a fierce attack against a larger male intruder in a behavior termed maternal aggression or maternal defense. Although maternal aggression plays a critical role in the perpetuation of species and offspring, it has received relatively little research attention. The present focus of my lab work is understanding the neural and genetic basis of maternal defense behavior in mice. I am also interested in examining the neuroendocrine basis of other maternal behaviors, such as elevated arousal, nursing, pup retrieval, and licking and grooming of pups. The general approach in the laboratory is to use multiple levels of analysis to gain insights into how neural circuitry controls behavior. The techniques used in the lab include behavioral testing, immunohistochemistry, cannulae (for direct testing of neuromodulators on behavior), pharmacological techniques, anatomical techniques, knockout mice phenotyping, and analysis of gene expression in subregions of the brain using gene arrays and real-time PCR.

Lab Website:

http://www.zoology.wisc.edu/faculty/Gam/SCGwebpage.html

Selected Publications:

• Gammie, S.C., N.S. Hasen, T.A. Awad, A.P. Auger, H.M. Jessen, J.B. Panksepp, and A.M. Bronikowski. 2005. Gene array profiling of large hypothalamic CNS regions in lactating and randomly cycling virgin mice. Mol. Brain Res. In press. [PDF]
• D'Anna K.L., S.A. Stevenson, and S.C. Gammie. 2005. Urocortin 1 and 3 impair maternal defense behavior in mice. Beh. Neurosci. 119: 1061-1071. [PDF]
• Gammie, S.C., A. Negron, S.M. Newman, and J.S. Rhodes. 2004. Corticotropin-releasing factor inhibits maternal aggression in mice. Beh. Neurosci. 118: 805-814. [PDF]
• Gammie, S.C. and R.J. Nelson. 2001. cFOS and pCREB activation and maternal aggression in mice. Brain Res. 898: 232-241. [PDF]
• Gammie, S.C. and R.J. Nelson. 2000. Maternal and mating-induced aggression is associated with an elevation of citrulline immunoreactivity in the paraventricular nucleus in prairie voles. J. Comp. Neurol. 418: 182-192. [PDF]
• Gammie, S.C. and R. J. Nelson. 1999. Maternal aggression is reduced in neuronal nitric oxide synthase-deficient mice. J. Neurosci. 19: 8027-8035. [PDF]