2024 Seed Grant
Jesse H. Goldberg, M.D., Ph.D.
Cornell University
Parenting is hard work. Humans and other animals have to care not only for themselves but also for needy young. Here we examine brain mechanisms of parenting in songbirds. Mammals feed their young through nursing, but songbirds must go out and find food and return to the nest and actively feed their young by placing food into their chicks’ open beaks. How do birds know how to do this? Here we test if songbirds get rewarded by internal brain dopamine systems for feeding their chicks. It’s already known that when a hungry animal (including a bird or a human) gets food reward, there is a burst of dopamine in its brain. We recently developed methods to measure brain dopamine signals in birds, so now we can test if the same burst of dopamine occurs when a parent successfully gives food way to its chick. Overall, we are testing if altruistic behaviors – where animals do work for others – can re-use existing brain pathways for serving oneself.
