Maternal separation disrupts noradrenergic control of adult coping behaviors.

ABSTRACT: Early life stress (ELS) profoundly impacts the brain and correlates with negative affective behaviors in adulthood. The locus coeruleus (LC), a stress-responsive brainstem nucleus that supplies most of the brain with norepinephrine (NE), is known to modulate negative affect. Using repeated maternal separation stress (MSS), we investigated the impact of ELS on the LC and stress-related behaviors in adulthood. We performed ex vivo cell-attached electrophysiology across the lifespan to reveal that MSS significantly increased LC firing during early development and adulthood but not in pre-adolescence and adolescence. We next examined potential changes in the expression of genes linked to LC function. In adulthood, MSS decreased mRNA levels for both the alpha-2_A adrenergic receptor a

SUBMITTER: Vazquez CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12518818 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature