title: Maternal separation followed by isolation-housing differentially affects prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response in C57BL/6 mice.
abstract: Exposure to chronic stress is associated with an increased incidence of neuropsychiatric dysfunction. The current study evaluated two competing hypotheses, the cumulative stress and the match/mismatch hypothesis of neuropsychiatric dysfunction, using two paradigms relating to exposure to "stress": pre-weaning maternal separation and post-weaning isolation-housing. C57BL/6 offspring were reared under four conditions: typical animal facility rearing (AFR, control), early handling (EH, daily 15 min separation from dam), maternal separation (MS, daily 4 hr separation from dam), and maternal and peer separation (MPS, daily 4 hr separation from dam and from littermates). After weaning, mice were either housed socially (2-3/cage) or in isolation (1/cage) and then tested for prepulse inhibition in adulthood. Isolation-housed MPS subjects displayed greater deficits in prepulse inhibition relative to socially-housed MPS subjects while socially-housed AFR subjects displayed greater deficits in prepulse inhibition relative to isolation-housed AFR subjects. The results indicate that these treatment conditions represent a potentially valuable model for evaluating the match/mismatch hypothesis in regards to neuropsychiatric dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Division of Animal Welfare, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jeremy D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Bailoo
authors.affiliation: Division of Animal Welfare, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Justin A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Varholick
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina.
authors.forename: Xavier J
authors.initials: XJ
authors.lastname: Garza
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina.
authors.forename: Richard L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Jordan
authors.affiliation: Division of Animal Welfare, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hintze
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D006799:Housing, Animal; D008297:Male; D008426:Maternal Deprivation; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D065808:Prepulse Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D013216:Reflex, Startle / Q000502:physiology*; D012934:Social Isolation
keywords: early handling; isolation-housing; match/mismatch hypothesis; maternal separation; prepulse inhibition