Early life stress influences basal ganglia dopamine receptors and novel object recognition of adolescent and adult rats.

ABSTRACT: Environmental stimuli in early life are recognized to affect brain development and behavior. Mother-pup interaction constitutes a determinant stimulus during this critical period. It is known that the dopaminergic system undergoes significant reorganization during adolescence and that dopamine receptors are involved in recognition memory. Based on the above, we examined the effects of brief and prolonged maternal separation during the neonatal period (15 or 180 min daily) on basal ganglia dopamine receptors and on the behavior in the novel object recognition task of adolescent and adult male rats. Using the NOR task, we observed that the discrimination index (DI) was decreased in rats with brief maternal separations independent of age. Using receptor autoradiography, we observed that brief

SUBMITTER: Sinani A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9092503 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature