Young adults' childhood experiences of support when living with a parent with a mental illness.

There are several concerns in relation to children living with a parent suffering from a mental illness. In such circumstances, the health-care professionals need to involve the whole family, offering help to the parents on parenting as well as support for their children. These children are often helped by participating in meetings that provide them with contact with others with similar experiences.

The impact of postnatal environment on opioid peptides in young and adult male Wistar rats.

Early environmental influences can change the neuronal development and thereby affect behavior in adult life. The aim in the present study was to thoroughly examine the impact of early environmental factors on endogenous opioids by using a rodent maternal separation (MS) model. The endogenous opioid peptide system is not fully developed at birth, and short- and/or long-term alterations may occur in these neural networks in animals exposed to manipulation of the postnatal environment.

Time-dependent alterations in ethanol intake in male wistar rats exposed to short and prolonged daily maternal separation in a 4-bottle free-choice paradigm.

Background: Previous studies have shown that maternal separation can be used in animal studies of early environmental influence on adult ethanol intake. These studies have shown that short daily separations result in low ethanol intake, whereas prolonged separations relate to an enhanced risk for a high ethanol intake. The aim of the present study was to further examine the long-term effects of early-life events on ethanol intake.

Behavioral profiles and stress-induced corticosteroid secretion in male Wistar rats subjected to short and prolonged periods of maternal separation.

Early life experiences are important for the development of neurobiobehavioral mechanisms and subsequent establishment of mental functions. In experimental animals, early life experiences can be studied using the maternal separation model. Maternal separation has been described to induce neurobiological changes and thus affect brain function, mental state and behavior.

Repeated maternal separation of male Wistar rats alters glutamate receptor expression in the hippocampus but not the prefrontal cortex.

Stress early in life puts the individual at a greater risk for developing mental disorders in adulthood. The animal model of maternal separation involves daily removal of pups from their mother over the early postnatal period and leads to several behavioral deficits in adults. Since this period corresponds to a time of extensive developmental changes in the glutamatergic system, glutamate receptor mRNA expression was studied in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.

Variations in opioid peptide levels during the estrous cycle in Sprague-Dawley rats.

The estrous cycle, with its various hormonal conditions, may provide us with the means of understanding how endocrine states relate to opioid mechanisms. There has been increasing experimental support for interaction between sex steroids and opioid peptides in the central nervous system. Here, we describe fluctuations in endogenous brain immunoreactive (ir) peptide levels during various phases of the estrous cycle in the female Sprague-Dawley rat.

Effects of maternal separation on voluntary ethanol intake and brain peptide systems in female Wistar rats.

In previous studies, changes in adult ethanol intake after early environmental experiences, such as short and prolonged maternal separation, have been described in male rats. The aim of this study was to further investigate long-term effects of maternal separation on voluntary ethanol intake as well as brain opioid and nociceptin/orphanin FQ (N/OFQ) peptides in female Wistar rats. During postnatal days (PNDs) 1-21, rat pups were subjected to 15 min (MS15) or 360 min (MS360) of daily maternal separation, or were kept under normal animal facility rearing (AFR) conditions.

Short and prolonged periods of maternal separation and voluntary ethanol intake in male and female ethanol-preferring AA and ethanol-avoiding ANA rats.

Background: Genetic as well as environmental factors can affect the propensity for psychopathology and/or drug dependence. Maternal separation represents an animal experimental model that is useful in studies of effects of early life experiences. The authors have established a protocol for short and prolonged periods of maternal separation to study adult neurochemistry, behavior, and ethanol intake and have previously reported alterations in ethanol intake in Wistar rats and ethanol-preferring rats.