Innate and plastic mechanisms for maternal behaviour in auditory cortex

Infant cries evoke powerful responses in parents. Whether parental animals are intrinsically sensitive to neonatal vocalizations, or instead learn about vocal cues for parenting responses is unclear. In mice, pup-naive virgin females do not recognize the meaning of pup distress calls, but retrieve isolated pups to the nest after having been co-housed with a mother and litte. Distress calls are...