Fragmentation and high entropy of neonatal experience predict adolescent emotional outcome.

ABSTRACT: Vulnerability to emotional disorders including depression derives from interactions between genes and environment, especially during sensitive developmental periods. Across evolution, maternal care is a key source of environmental sensory signals to the developing brain, and a vast body of work has linked quantitative and qualitative aspects of maternal care to emotional outcome in children and animals. However, the fundamental properties of maternal signals, that promote advantageous vs pathological outcomes in the offspring, are unknown and have been a topic of intense study. We studied emotional outcomes of adolescent rats reared under routine or impoverished environments, and used mathematical approaches to analyze the nurturing behaviors of the dams. Unexpectedly, whereas the quantity

SUBMITTER: Molet J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5068874 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature