Pup Exposure Is Sufficient for Activating Pup Retrieval Behavior in Pup-Naive Virgin Mice

Maternal behaviors in mammals depend on complex interactions between innate neural circuits, hormonal states, and external stimuli, such as exposure and experience with offspring. Literature has shown that exposure to offspring is enough to trigger maternal behavior in alloparental (non-parental) subjects. A recent study has posited a secondary path to acquire maternal behavior through socially transmitted visual observation. However, it remains unclear whether this mechanism is robust across laboratory settings. We aimed to replicate the findings by systematically investigating the role of visual observation in maternal behavior acquisition in pup-naive virgin female mice. Following the same protocol as previous studies, we compared retrieval performance under conditions that either allowed or prevented visual observation of maternal behavior. Contrary to previous findings reporting substantial differences between these conditions, virgin females readily acquired pup retrieval regardless of visual access to experienced mothers. We detected no barrier-related differences in retrieval success or in its trajectory across sessions. Barrier condition did affect the timing of successful retrievals: virgins in the opaque condition took longer to reach the pup on the first testing session only, whereas across all sessions they returned pups to the nest faster than virgins in the transparent condition, a direction not predicted by visual social transmission. These results question the replicability of visual transmission of maternal behavior in virgin female mice. Further discussion and examination is needed to determine whether visual observation plays a role in mouse alloparental behavior.