Dual influences of early life stress induced by limited bedding on walking adaptability and Bdnf/TrkB and Drd1/Drd2 gene expression in different mouse brain regions.

Introduction Evidence suggests early life stress impairs development, quality of life and increases vulnerability to disease. One important aspect of the stress experience is its impact on cognitive-motor performance, which includes the ability to adapt walking according to the environmental conditions. This study aimed to investigate how early-life stress affects walking adaptability of mice, while investigating BDNF/TrkB and Drd1/Drd2 expression in different brain regions.

Postnatal impoverished housing impairs adolescent risk-assessment and increases risk-taking: A sex-specific effect associated with histone epigenetic regulation of Crfr1 in the medial prefrontal cortex.

While increasing evidence posits poor decision-making as a central feature of mental disorders, very few studies investigated the effects of early-life stress (ELS) on specific components of reward-related choice behaviors. Risk-taking (RT) involves the exposure to some danger, or negative consequences, in order to achieve a goal-directed behavior. Such behaviors are likely to be preceded by risk-assessment (RA), which is a dynamic cognitive process involving the acquisition of information in potentially dangerous situations.

Maternal behavior of the mouse dam toward pups: implications for maternal separation model of early life stress.

Maternal care is essential for an adequate pup development, as well as for the health of the dam. Exposure to stress in early stages of life can disrupt this dam-pup relationship promoting altered neurobiological and behavioral phenotypes. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding the effects of daily maternal separation (MS) on the pattern of maternal behavior.

NFκB1 and NFκB2 gene expression in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of early life stressed mice exposed to cocaine-induced conditioned place preference during adolescence.

Neuro-immune pathways contribute to the onset and maintenance of cocaine-seeking behaviors, particularly through activation of NFκB signaling in the brain. However, the molecular mechanisms of this relationship are still not completely understood, especially considering the effects of early life stress, a major risk factor to cocaine addiction. The goal of this study was to investigate NFκB1 and NFκB2 gene expression in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus of mice exposed to early life stress and cocaine-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) within adolescence.