Maternal Social Separation of Adolescent Rats Induces Hyperactivity and Anxiolytic Behavior

Hyong Ryol Kwak; Jae Won Lee; Kwang-Jun Kwon; Chang Don Kang; Il Young Cheong; Wanjoo Chun; Sung-Soo Kim; Hee Jae Lee

doi:10.4196/kjpp.2009.13.2.79

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Kwak, Lee, Kwon, Kang, Cheong, Chun, Kim, and Lee: Maternal Social Separation of Adolescent Rats Induces Hyperactivity and Anxiolytic Behavior

Original Article

Korean J Physiol Pharmacol 2009;13(2):79-83.

Published online: 17 April 2009

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4196/kjpp.2009.13.2.79

Maternal Social Separation of Adolescent Rats Induces Hyperactivity and Anxiolytic Behavior

Hyong Ryol Kwak^1,^∗, Jae Won Lee^1,^∗, Kwang-Jun Kwon¹, Chang Don Kang², Il Young Cheong², Wanjoo Chun^1,², Sung-Soo Kim^1,², Hee Jae Lee^1,²

¹Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 200-701, Korea

²Medical Research Institute, School of Medicine, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 200-701, Korea

Corresponding to: Hee Jae Lee, Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Kangwon National University, 1, Hyoja-dong, Chunchon 200-701, Korea. (Tel) 82-33-250-8850, (Fax) 82-33-255-8809, (E-mail) heejaelee@kangwon.ac.kr

^∗ These authors contributed equally to this work.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Exposure to early stressful adverse life events such as maternal and social separation plays an essential role in the development of the nervous system. Adolescent Sprague-Dawley rats that were separated on postnatal day 14 from their dam and litters (maternal social separation, MSS) showed hyperactivity and anxiolytic behavior in the open field test, elevated plus-maze test, and forced-swim test. Biologically, the number of astrocytes was significantly increased in the prefrontal cortex of MSS adolescent rats. The hyperactive and anxiolytic phenotype and biological alteration produced by this MSS protocol may provide a useful animal model for investigating the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders of childhood-onset diseases, such as attention deficient hyperactive disorder.

Keywords: Maternal social separation, Early stress, Adolescence, ADHD

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Fig. 1.

Comparison between controls and maternal social separation (MSS) group on the open-field test. Data are expressed as mean±SEM. ∗∗p<0.01, Significant difference from control (Mann-Whitney U-test).

Fig. 2.

Effects of maternal and social separation on the elevated plus-maze test. Anxiety-related behavior as reflected by the percentage of entries (A) and time spent (B) on the open arms of the elevated plus-maze by controls and maternal social separation (MSS) rats on PND 35. Data are expressed as mean±SEM. ∗p<0.05, ∗∗p<0.01, Significant difference from control (Mann- Whitney U-test).

Fig. 3.

Effects of maternal and social separation on the forced swim test. Data are expressed as mean±SEM. ∗∗p<0.01, Significant difference from control (Mann-Whitney U-test).

Fig. 4.

Representative photomicrographs of GFAP immunoreactivity in the prefrontal cortex of control (A) and MSS (B) rats. Triple images (0.1 mm²) on the frontal cortex 1 and 2 area were obtained, and density of GFAP-positive cells was calculated (C). Data are expressed as mean±SEM. ∗∗p<0.01, Significant difference from control (Mann-Whitney U-test).

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