Adult life behavioral consequences of early maternal separation are alleviated by escitalopram treatment in a rat model of depression

Depressive behaviors and decreased expression of serotonin reuptake transporter in rats that experienced neonatal maternal separation

“…That is, MS rats exhibited decreased ambulatory activity and increased immobility in forced swim test, and spent significantly more time in the closed arms, less time in the open arms, of elevated plus maze, than NH rats. Our results are in accordance with reports by others following a similar separation paradigm (Ladd et al, 2000;Kalinichev et al, 2002;Newport et al, 2002;Daniels et al, 2004;Khoury et al, 2006), and further supports that neonatal maternal separation is an adequate rat model to study the molecular mechanism underlying the pathophysiology of affective disorders related with early life exposure to adverse events, including early parental neglect or loss, in human.…”

“…That is, 5-HTT mRNA expression was decreased in the dorsal raphe nucleus of ob/ob mouse showing symptoms of behavioral depression (Collin et al, 2000), and the knockout mice lacking 5-HTT expression exhibited depression-like behaviors with decreased neuronal activities of 5-HTergic neurons in the dorsal raphe nucleus (Lira et al, 2003). Furthermore, chronic treatment with selective 5-HT reuptake inhibitor improved depression-like behavior in an animal model of depression the Flinder Sensitive Line rats with/ without neonatal maternal separation (Khoury et al, 2006). These reports together strongly support a functional significance of 5-HTT in the development of depression-like behaviors by maternal separation.…”

“…Many of studies have demonstrated its impact both on the activity of HPA axis; i.e., permanent alterations in the characteristics of the HPA response to stress (Ladd et al, 1996;Van Oers et al, 1998;Vazquez et al, 2000) and on the development of depression- (Ladd et al, 2000;Khoury et al, 2006) and anxiety-like behavior (Kalinichev et al, 2002;Daniels et al, 2004) later in life. 5-HT neurotransmission in the hippocampus is believed to be involved in the regulation of HPA axis activity throughout life.…”

Perinatal stress: characteristics and effects on adult eating behavior

“…This response is divided into 3 stages: alarm (identification of the stressing agent), resistance (successfully fight off the stressing agent) and exhaustion (caused by harmful stress effects, the body can no longer respond to the stressing agent). The stressing agent is described as something that disrupts the body's homeostasis and thereby requires a physiological response 8 .…”

“…The great prevalence of obesity today is associated with genetic factors and with events that may have happened in early life. There are numerous accounts of eating and metabolic disorders in individuals who have been exposed to adverse environments in early life 8 . As an example, there are studies that show an important relationship between anorexia and bulimia nervosa in youth and sexual abuse during childhood.…”