Why maternal behavior?
Broadly, maternal behavior is any caregiving from a mother that promotes the survival of their offspring. The repertoire of maternal behaviors vary from species to species depending on differences in social and reproductive strategies. Most primates and a large proportion of rodents and birds actively provide their offspring with nutrients, shelter, protection, warmth, and socialization. For the majority of mammals, it is the mother who provides this care for their offspring.
Caregiving employs an outstanding array of cognitive, motivational, and affective processes. Mothers with stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders such as postpartum depression display deficits in cognition, motivation, affect, and overall parenting abilities. Untreated, postpartum depression can be devastating for the wellbeing of the affected mother and child. My doctoral research aimed to provide a comprehensive picture of neurobiological factors that underlie depression-related caregiving deficits.
As a postdoctoral researcher, I will continue investigating the neurobiology of maternal behavior, and how caregiving can be recovered when it is disrupted.