While mothering is often instinctive and stereotyped in species-specific ways, evolution can favor genetically “open” behavior programs that allow experience to shape infant care. Among experience-dependent maternal behavioral mechanisms, sensory learning about infants has been hard to separate from motivational changes arising from sensitization with infants. We developed a paradigm in which sensory learning of an infant-associated cue improves a stereotypical maternal behavior in female mice. Mice instinctively employed a spatial memory-based strategy when engaged repetitively in a pup search and retrieval task. However, by playing a sound from a T-maze arm to signal where a pup will be delivered for retrieval, mice learned within 7 days and retained for at least 2 weeks the ability to use this specific cue to guide a more efficient search strategy. The motivation to retrieve pups also increased with learning on average, but their correlation did not explain performance at the trial level. Bilaterally silencing auditory cortical activity significantly impaired the utilization of new strategy without changing the motivation to retrieve pups. Finally, motherhood as compared to infant-care experience alone accelerated how quickly the new sensory-based strategy was acquired, suggesting a role for the maternal hormonal state. By rigorously establishing that newly formed sensory associations can improve the performance of a natural maternal behavior, this work facilitates future studies into the neurochemical and circuit mechanisms that mediate novel sensory learning in the maternal context, as well as more learning-based mechanisms of parental behavior in rodents.

虽然母爱通常是本能的，并且以特定于物种的方式刻板印象，但进化可能有利于基因“开放”行为计划，让经验塑造婴儿护理。在依赖于经验的母亲行为机制中，婴儿的感官学习很难与婴儿敏感引起的动机变化分开。我们开发了一种范式，其中婴儿相关线索的感官学习改善了雌性小鼠的刻板母亲行为。当重复参与幼崽搜索和检索任务时，小鼠本能地采用基于空间记忆的策略。然而，通过播放 T 型迷宫臂的声音来指示将在哪里运送幼犬以进行检索，老鼠在 7 天内学会了使用这一特定线索来指导更有效的搜索策略的能力，并保留了至少 2 周。取回幼崽的动机也随着平均学习而增加，但它们的相关性并不能解释试验水平的表现。双边沉默听觉皮层活动显着削弱了新策略的利用，而不会改变检索幼崽的动机。最后，与单独的婴儿护理经验相比，母性加速了新的基于感官的策略的获得速度，这表明母体荷尔蒙状态的作用。通过严格确定新形成的感官联想可以改善自然母性行为的表现，