# MIRA:  The biological basis of paternal care in stickleback fish

> **NIH NIH R35** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2022 · $32,936

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Parental care is critical to the health of both parents and offspring, yet little is known about how molecular
substrates act within brain areas and neuronal circuits to alter parental behavior, and this gap is especially
wide for paternal care, i.e. the care-giving behavior of fathers. The proposed research capitalizes on natural
variation in paternal care within a single species (threespined stickleback fish) to uncover the biological basis
of paternal care in vertebrates. The current models for paternal care have biparental care, which makes it
difficult to disentangle the behavior of mothers and fathers. Threespined stickleback fish are a promising new
model for paternal care because fathers are solely responsible for providing care. Moreover, the molecular
mechanisms related to care are deeply conserved in vertebrates, the stickleback genome is small and compact
and there are a growing number of functional tools available to study them. The goals of this proposal are to
define the molecular elements responsible for differences in paternal care within a single species and to
characterize the neurobiological pathways involved in such variation in behavior. There are two objectives: 1)
Identify genes that contribute to differences in paternal care and test their function; 2) Define the ways in which
neuropeptide signaling regulates paternal care. The project combines brain gene expression profiling at the
bulk and single cell level, viral mediated transgenesis experiments to establish mechanism and
pharmacological manipulations of oxytocin and arginine vasopressin signaling. The proposed work offers an
innovative solution to the challenge of dissecting the biological basis of paternal care by using a powerful new
model for fathering, and by capitalizing on natural variation in paternal care within a single species.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10582361
- **Project number:** 3R35GM139597-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Alison Marie Bell
- **Activity code:** R35 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $32,936
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-01-05 → 2025-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10582361

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10582361, MIRA:  The biological basis of paternal care in stickleback fish (3R35GM139597-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10582361. Licensed CC0.

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