Table 3.

Brain areas and neurochemicals associated with maternal behaviors. Medial amygdala (MeA), bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST), cortical amygdala (CoA), medial preoptic area (mPOA), ventral tegmental area (VTA), basolateral amygdala (BLA), nucleus accumbens (NAc), prefrontal cortex (PFC), oxytocin (OT), estrogen (E2), prolactin (PRL), dopamine (DA), vesicular GABA transporter (Vgat), hypocretin-1 neurons (HCRT-1), agouti related protein (AGRP).

Brain Area	Neurochemical	Effect	Representative References
MeA BNST CoA	OT	Acceptance, social recognition	[74,79,83]
mPOA	E2 PRL OT DA Galanin Vgat HCRT-1 AGRP	Pup retrieval Pup retrieval, nest-building Acceptance, licking/grooming Motivation, licking, grooming Motor coordination, motivation, recognition, grooming, inhibition of aggression Nest-building Licking/retrieval Inhibition of nest-building	[32,33,40] [36] [102,103] [103,104,130] [130] [106] [107]
VTA	OT	Approach, interaction	[74,79,86]
BLA	OT opioids	Inhibit rejection/fear	[85,108,121,124]
NAc	DA OT	Motivation, approach, interaction, pup retrieval	[99,100,101,112]
PFC	OT DA	Inhibit rejection/fear	[125,126]