Early Attachment Disruption, Inflammation, and Vulnerability for Depression in Rodent and Primate Models.

Early experiments in nonhuman primates established the relation between disruption of filial attachment and depressive-like outcomes. Subsequent studies in rats and mice have been instrumental in linking depressive-like outcomes to disturbances in maternal behavior. Another aspect of attachment disruption, absence of the attachment object , may be studied more effectively in a different laboratory rodent-the guinea pig.