Early separation of young rats from the mother and the development of play fighting

Janus, K

doi:10.1016/0031-9384(87)90375-1

Cited by 41 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Early weaning from the mother led to a decrease in play-fighting and to an increase in anxiety-related behavior in juvenile rats [6,7]. Similarly, a decrease in social seeking behaviors has been reported in mice [18].…”

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confidence: 64%

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The Influence of Early Weaning on Aggressive Behavior in Mice

et al. 2003

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ABSTRACT. Early postnatal experiences have been shown to have a tremendous influence on behavior development. In this study, we focused on weaning time and investigated the effects of early weaning on adulthood aggressive behavior in mice with the residentintruder test. Early weaning resulted in decreased sideways threat and tail rattle. In addition, the frequency of attack bites was more variable in the early weaned group, although the mean frequency did not differ from the normally weaned group. The results of the present study suggest that aggressive behavior is also affected by early weaning manipulation. KEY WORDS: aggression, early environment, weaning.J. Vet. Med. Sci. 65(12): 1347-1349, 2003 Development of the behavioral repertoire is greatly influenced by the early postnatal environment in various mammalian species. In particular, mother-pup interactions play an important role in the development of instinctive behavior [1,8,11,12,17,19]. In rats, for instance, a lower level of maternal care or long-term maternal deprivation increases responsiveness to various stressors and anxiety-related behavior, whereas the same deprivation suppresses the manifestation of social behavior [1,8,12,19]. Rhesus monkeys that received less maternal care also exhibit exaggerated fear responses and emotional behavior [11,17].Weaning is one of the most important experiences in the early life of mammalian species. Early weaning from the mother led to a decrease in play-fighting and to an increase in anxiety-related behavior in juvenile rats [6,7]. Similarly, a decrease in social seeking behaviors has been reported in mice [18]. Recently, we have found that early weaning results in a persistent increase in anxiety in mice [9]. This finding suggested that the timing of weaning has a long-lasting influence on various aspects of behavioral development, in addition to the direct effects observed during the neonatal and/or juvenile stages of life.As for aggressive behavior, however, there is only limited information about the effects of timing of weaning and the postnatal environment. We have previously found that male mice weaned earlier than normally weaned mice have a greater number of wounds on their tails when co-housed with male mice that had been manipulated in the same manner [9]. This finding implies that the level of aggression may have been heightened by the early weaning manipulation but we could not detect the attack bite behavior in isolation-induced aggression tests. One possible explanation for why the laboratory mice were not very aggressive in the isolation-induced aggression test was the fact that sexually naive mice were used in the previous study, and such mice have been reported to show low levels of aggression [2,15]. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of early weaning on aggressive behavior exhibited in adulthood after the males were paired with females for 3 weeks. The resident-intruder test was adopted for the study, as it was considered to be suitable for assessing the natural ...

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confidence: 64%

“…It is conceivable that there were larger individual differences in aggressive arousal among the EW mice. In rats and mice, early weaning has been shown to increase anxiety-related behaviors [6,7,9]. From these reports, it would be expected that the EW mice in the present study would have had high anxiety levels.…”

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confidence: 70%

The Influence of Early Weaning on Aggressive Behavior in Mice

et al. 2003

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“…In adult rats, ani-mals weaned at day 30 PN compared to day 21 PN were found to spend more time in contact and in social investigation with a novel same-sex animal [Ferdman et al, 2007]. Conversely, rats weaned at day 14 PN have been shown to exhibit reduced frequencies of play fighting compared to animals weaned later [Janus, 1987;Shimozuru et al, 2007], though some evidence suggests that during the very early juvenile period, rat offspring weaned at earlier time points may show an increase in play behaviors [Brunelli et al, 1989;Smith, 1991]. As the decrease in social investigation that we observe in R21 weaned offspring is limited to the first minute of contact, these weaning age effects may relate to a decrease in social neophobia among animals who have undergone the process of weaning through extended mother-infant contact.…”

Section: Weaning Age Influence On Anxiety-like Exploratory and Sociamentioning

confidence: 98%

The Meaning of Weaning: Influence of the Weaning Period on Behavioral Development in Mice

et al. 2009

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Maternal care during the first week postpartum has long-term consequences for offspring development in rodents. However, mother-infant interactions continue well beyond this period, with several physiological and behavioral changes occurring between days 18 and 28 PN. In the present study, we investigate the long-term effects on offspring behavior of being weaned at day 21 PN versus day 28 PN. We found that male and female offspring engage in higher initial levels of social interaction if weaned at day 28 PN, as well as sexually dimorphic changes in exploratory behavior. Females who were themselves weaned earlier also appeared to wean their own pups earlier. Sex-specific effects of weaning age were found on levels of oxytocin and vasopressin V1a receptor density in the hypothalamus, central nucleus of the amygdala and nucleus accumbens. These results indicate that altering weaning age in mice may be a useful model for investigating the development of sexual dimorphism in neurobiology and behavior.

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“…To the best of our knowledge, only one report has examined the effects of precocious weaning on the playfighting behavior of rats (Janus, 1987). In that study, precocious weaning was found to decrease the frequency of play behaviors, although the animals were tested only during 3 days of the postweaning stage (i.e., postnatal days 33, 36, 39) and sex differences in the effects of precocious weaning were not well-examined.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early weaning decreases play‐fighting behavior during the postweaning developmental period of wistar rats

Shimozuru

Kodama

Iwasa

et al. 2007

Developmental Psychobiology

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We examined the influence of early weaning on the development of play-fighting behaviors and anxiety status in Wistar rats. Pups were divided into two groups, those weaned at postnatal day (PD) 16 (early-weaned group) and those weaned at PD30 (normally weaned group), and were housed in pairs of the same sex. Playful interactions were measured for each pair once a week from 4 to 7 weeks of age. Thereafter, during early adulthood, all the rats were subjected to the elevated plus-maze test. The frequencies of pinning and playful attack were less in the early-weaned group than in the normally weaned group. In the elevated plus-maze test, rat pups in the early-weaned group had higher anxiety levels. The results showed that deprivation of mother-pup interactions during the preweaning period decreases affiliative interactions between cage mates, including play-fighting behaviors during the postweaning developmental period, and increases anxiety levels during early adulthood.

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Early separation of young rats from the mother and the development of play fighting

Cited by 41 publications

References 20 publications

The Influence of Early Weaning on Aggressive Behavior in Mice

The Influence of Early Weaning on Aggressive Behavior in Mice

The Meaning of Weaning: Influence of the Weaning Period on Behavioral Development in Mice

Early weaning decreases play‐fighting behavior during the postweaning developmental period of wistar rats

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