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Mother-young bond in non-human mammals: Neonatal communication pathways and neurobiological basis

Daniel Mota-Rojas1, Cécile Bienboire-Frosini2, Míriam Marcet-Rius3

  • 1Neurophysiology, Behavior and Animal Welfare Assessment, DPAA, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Xochimilco Campus, Mexico City, Mexico.

Frontiers in Psychology
|December 16, 2022
PubMed

Mother-young bonding is a process by which the young establish social preferences for their mother. It fosters reproductive success and the survival of offspring by providing food, heat, and maternal care. This process promotes the establishment of the mother-young bond through the interaction of olfactory, auditory, tactile, visual, and thermal stimuli. The neural integration of multimodal sensory stimuli and attachment is coordinated into motor responses. The sensory and neurobiological mechanisms involved in filial recognition in precocial and altricial mammals are summarized and analyzed in this review.

Keywords:
bondinglickingmaternal recognitionolfactorysensitive periodvisualvocalization

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