Abstract
Aims: Early postnatal maternal and/or sibling separation (MS) can play an important role in the development of psychopathologies during ontogeny. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the effects of repeated MS on the cognitive and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) function of rats. Methods: We investigated the effects of repeated MS that lasted 3 h/day during postnatal days 1-21 on spatial learning and reversal learning in Morris water maze tests in male rats. The rats were tested in 4 trials. Moreover, we examined the effects of MS on BDNF protein expression in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), the nucleus accumbens, and the hippocampus via immunohistochemistry measurements. Results: We found that repeated MS modestly disrupted reversal learning performance in the Morris water maze and decreased BDNF protein expression in the mPFC. Conclusion: The present study enhances our understanding of the neurobiological and behavioral consequences of repeated episodes of MS in rats to some degree.
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