Abstract
Separation of pups from their dam during the infancy not only has detrimental effects on the pups' brain but also affects dams' behavior. Postpartum stress may affect mothers' cognitive functions. In the present study, by using a 180-minday-1 maternal separation (MS) paradigm, we assessed anxiety-like behavior and locomotor activity of rat dams which experienced separation from postnatal day (PND) 1 until weaning. We tried for the first time to clarify whether such separation impairs dam's performance in the Morris water maze. We assessed dams' behavior at three time points: 24 h, 1week, and 1month after weaning. Therefore, the six groups consisted of control (CTRL) 24 h, 1week, and 1month and MS 24 h, 1week, and 1month, which was allocated in this study. Our results revealed that although MS-24 h and MS-1week groups had intact locomotor activity, MS-1month group showed less locomotor activity in the open field. Moreover, MS-induced anxiety-like behavior was more pronounced in MS-1week and MS-1month dams. Spatial learning and memory was also impaired only in MS-1month dams. We can conclude that MS induces cognitive impairments in dam that may appear not immediately after the separation but a few weeks after such stressful event.
Highlights
Separation of pups from their dam during the infancy has detrimental effects on the pups’ brain and affects dams’ behavior
We can conclude that maternal separation (MS) induces cognitive impairments in dam that may appear not immediately after the separation, but a few weeks after such stressful event
We investigated dam’s anxiety, locomotor activity and spatial learning and memory in three time points after weaning to see whether MS effects on the dams’ behavior would be long-lasting
Summary
Separation of pups from their dam during the infancy has detrimental effects on the pups’ brain and affects dams’ behavior. The literature on the field suggests that MS in critical periods of brain development affects some aspects of neuroplasticity and may lead to behavioral and cognitive malfunctioning such as spatial (Bárbara Aisa, Tordera, Lasheras, Del Río, & Ramírez, 2007; Akillioglu, Yilmaz, Boga, Binokay, & Kocaturk-Sel, 2015; Batalha et al, 2013; Cao et al, 2014; Frankola et al, 2010; Huot, Plotsky, Lenox, & McNamara, 2002; Yang, Li, Han, & Zhu, 2017) and non-spatial (Bárbara Aisa et al, 2007; Banqueri, Mendez, & Arias, 2017; Frankola et al, 2010; Hill et al, 2014; Hulshof et al, 2011; Wearick-Silva et al, 2017) learning and memory as well as depressive- or anxiety- like behaviors (Wang, Shao, & Wang, 2015).Hippocampus, an essential structure for spatial learning and memory, is especially vulnerable to early life stress (Cao et al, 2014).
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