Early life stress increases anxiety-like behavior in Balb c mice despite a compensatory increase in levels of postnatal maternal care.

ABSTRACT: A better understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which early life stress (ELS) modifies brain development and adult behavior is necessary for diagnosing and treating psychopathology associated with exposure to ELS. For historical reasons, most of the work in rodents has been done in rats and attempts to establish robust and reproducible paradigms in the mouse have proven to be challenging. Here we show that under normal rearing conditions, increased levels of postnatal maternal care are associated with a decrease in anxiety-like behavior in BALB/cByj offspring. Brief daily pup-dam separation (BDS) during the postnatal period was associated with increased postnatal maternal care but was surprisingly associated with increased anxiety-like behavior in adult offspring, provid

SUBMITTER: Wei L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2849915 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature