Adult male mice are usually aggressive toward newborn mice.You suspect that the hormone prolactin being expressed in the adult males underlies this aggression and have identified a gene for prolactin receptors.The next logical step in your study would be to

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The most logical next step would be to knock out the gene for prolactin receptors to determine if the aggression in male mice toward newborns is indeed caused by the hormone prolactin. By testing the knockout male mice with newborns, researchers can determine if the prolactin receptor gene is necessary for the aggressive behavior to occur. If the knockout male mice show reduced aggression toward newborns, this would support the hypothesis that prolactin is indeed involved in male aggression toward newborns. Conducting breeding experiments, deprivation experiments, or hybridization experiments would not directly test the role of prolactin receptors in male aggression toward newborns. Testing whether aggression is a fixed action pattern by exposing male mice to objects that mimic specific features of newborns could be informative, but this would not directly test the role of prolactin receptors in male aggression toward newborns.

Adult Male Mice Are Usually Aggressive Toward Newborn Mice