Abstract
Exposure of mothers to chronic stressors during pregnancy or the postpartum period often leads to the development of depression, anxiety, or other related mood disorders. The adverse effects of mood disorders are often mediated through maternal behavior and recent work has identified arginine vasopressin (AVP) as a key neuropeptide hormone in the expression of maternal behavior in both rats and humans. Using an established rodent model that elicits behavioral and physiological responses similar to human mood disorders, this study tested the effectiveness of chronic AVP infusion as a novel treatment for the adverse effects of exposure to chronic social stress during lactation in rats. During early (day 3) and mid (day 10) lactation, AVP treatment significantly decreased the latency to initiate nursing and time spent retrieving pups, and increased pup grooming and total maternal care (sum of pup grooming and nursing). AVP treatment was also effective in decreasing maternal aggression and the average duration of aggressive bouts on day 3 of lactation. Central AVP may be an effective target for the development of treatments for enhancing maternal behavior in individuals exposed to chronic social stress.
Highlights
Depression, chronic anxiety, and other mood disorders can have negative consequences on mothers as well as their offspring, and the occurrence of these disorders during lactation has been associated with impaired child growth and development [1,2]
There were no overall effects of arginine vasopressin (AVP) treatment on any behavioral variable, but there were several behaviors significantly affected by lactation day
The primary focus of the current study is to investigate the effects of AVP on maternal behavior; the effects of lactation day will not be discussed in detail
Summary
Depression, chronic anxiety, and other mood disorders can have negative consequences on mothers as well as their offspring, and the occurrence of these disorders during lactation has been associated with impaired child growth and development [1,2]. While the adverse effects of mood disorders are often mediated through maternal behavior [3], few studies investigating depression focus on maternal females and offspring care. Exposure to various stressors during pregnancy or the postpartum period are often linked to the development of mood disorders [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13], and in humans, chronic exposure to psychosocial stressors, such as social conflict, is one of the strongest predictors of postpartum depression [14]. While numerous animal models of stress-induced depression and anxiety disrupt maternal behavior, most involve significant physiological components and may not replicate the effects of chronic psychosocial stressors in humans. Further study of the adult offspring of stressed dams indicates that CSS is a potent early life stressor that decreases nursing efficiency
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