1 research outputs found
Maternal neglect with reduced depressive-like behavior and blunted c-fos activation in Brattleboro mothers, the role of central vasopressin.
Early mother-infant relationships exert important long-term
effects in offspring and are disturbed by factors such as
postpartum depression. We aimed to clarify if lack of
vasopressin influences maternal behavior paralleled by the
development of a depressive-like phenotype. We compared
vasopressin-deficient Brattleboro mothers with heterozygous and
homozygous normal ones. The following parameters were measured:
maternal behavior (undisturbed and separation-induced); anxiety
by the elevated plus maze; sucrose and saccharin preference and
forced swim behavior. Underlying brain areas were examined by c-
fos immunocytochemistry among rest and after swim-stress. In
another group of rats, vasopressin 2 receptor agonist was used
peripherally to exclude secondary changes due to diabetes
insipidus. Results showed that vasopressin-deficient rats spend
less time licking-grooming their pups through a centrally driven
mechanism. There was no difference between genotypes during the
pup retrieval test. Vasopressin-deficient mothers tended to
explore more the open arms of the plus maze, showed more
preference for sucrose and saccharin and struggled more in the
forced swim test, suggesting that they act as less depressive.
Under basal conditions, vasopressin-deficient mothers had more
c-fos expression in the medial preoptic area, shell of nucleus
accumbens, paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus and
amygdala, but not in other structures. In these areas the swim-
stress-induced activation was smaller. In conclusion,
vasopressin-deficiency resulted in maternal neglect due to a
central effect and was protective against depressive-like
behavior probably as a consequence of reduced activation of some
stress-related brain structures. The conflicting behavioral data
underscores the need for more sex specific studies