title: Maternal separation during a specific postnatal time window prevents reinforcement of hippocampal long-term potentiation in adolescent rats.
abstract: In an attempt to develop an animal model to study the etiology of brain dysfunction in relation to early life experience, we tested the hypothesis that early-life stress during specific postnatal time windows affects long-term potentiation (LTP) reinforcement in adolescence. Male Wistar rat pups were stressed by separation from their dams for 24 h at postnatal day (PND) 4, 9, or 18. The animals were tested for reinforcement of LTP at adolescence (9 weeks old) by exposing them to a 2-min swim-stress. Here, we show that maternal separation during (at PND9) but not at the beginning (at PND4) or after (at PND18) the stress-hyporesponsive-period of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis impairs emotional LTP-reinforcement in adolescent animals. Thus, this in vivo model allows the investigation of physiological and pathophysiological emotional information processing at the cellular level in freely behaving adolescent animals.
authors.affiliation: Otto von Guericke University, Institute of Biology, Department of Zoology/Developmental Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gruss
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.forename: J U
authors.initials: JU
authors.lastname: Frey
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Korz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D004569:Electroencephalography; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000254:growth & development / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007030:Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008426:Maternal Deprivation; D010913:Pituitary-Adrenal System / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013995:Time