Pituitary–Adrenal Responsiveness of Rat Mothers to Noxious Stimuli and Stimuli Produced by Pups

Smotherman, William P.; Wiener, Sandra G.; Mendoza, Sally P.; Levine, Seymour

doi:10.1002/9780470720271.ch2

Cited by 25 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Changes in behavior would therefore be expected both in mothers and in pups, specific to cross-fostered litters with LR-bred pups. Consistent with this mechanism, Smotherman et al (1976) found maternal stress responses to be dependent on cues received from their pups. When pups were removed from mothers and subjected to a shock, they elicited a greater activation of the maternal stress response when re-united with the mother, compared with pups that were simply removed from the mother and handled (Smotherman et al, 1976).…”

Section: Impact Of Maternal Care On Novelty-seekingmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Consistent with this mechanism, Smotherman et al (1976) found maternal stress responses to be dependent on cues received from their pups. When pups were removed from mothers and subjected to a shock, they elicited a greater activation of the maternal stress response when re-united with the mother, compared with pups that were simply removed from the mother and handled (Smotherman et al, 1976). Early postnatal behavioral studies of both mothers and pups following cross-fostering are currently underway to determine the cause of the change in behavior observed in cross-fostered LR-bred pups.…”

Section: Impact Of Maternal Care On Novelty-seekingmentioning

confidence: 71%

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Selective Breeding for Divergence in Novelty-seeking Traits: Heritability and Enrichment in Spontaneous Anxiety-related Behaviors

et al. 2006

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Outbred Sprague-Dawley rats can be classified as high responders (HR) or low responders (LR) based on their levels of exploratory locomotion in a novel environment. While this novelty-seeking dimension was originally related to differential vulnerability to substance abuse, behavioral, neuroendocrine and gene expression studies suggest a fundamental difference in emotional reactivity between these animals. Here, we report the first study to selectively breed rats based on this novelty-seeking dimension. Response to novelty was clearly heritable, with a > 2-fold difference in behavior seen after eight generations of selection. Three tests of anxiety-like behavior consistently showed significantly greater anxiety in LR-bred rats compared to HR-bred animals, and this difference was diminished in the open field test by administration of the anxiolytic benzodiazepine drug, chlordiazepoxide. Cross-fostering revealed that responses to novelty were largely unaffected by maternal interactions, though there was an effect on anxiety-like behavior. These selected lines will enable future research on the interplay of genetic, environmental and developmental variables in controlling drug seeking behavior, stress and emotional reactivity.

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Section: Impact Of Maternal Care On Novelty-seekingmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Impact Of Maternal Care On Novelty-seekingmentioning

confidence: 71%

Selective Breeding for Divergence in Novelty-seeking Traits: Heritability and Enrichment in Spontaneous Anxiety-related Behaviors

et al. 2006

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“…exposure to ether, foot shock, forced swimming, hypertonic saline injection and LPS injection) and emotional stressors (e.g. elevated plus-maze, noise stress and social stress) stimulate the HPA axis much less effectively during lactation [40,52,53,54,55,56,57]. In addition, the reduced emotional responsiveness observed during lactation can be explained, at least in part, by an enhanced activity of the brain's oxytocin and prolactin systems, as both have anxiolytic properties in male and female rats, especially peripartum [49,58,59].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corticosterone Synthesis Inhibitor Metyrapone Preserves Changes in Maternal Behavior and Neuroendocrine Responses during Immunological Challenge in Lactating Rats

Vilela

Antunes‐Rodrigues²,

Elias³

et al. 2013

Neuroendocrinology

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Lactation is associated with profound behavioral and physiological adaptations in the mother that support reproductive success. These include neuroendocrine adaptation to stress that reduces anxiety-related behavior and emotional responsiveness. However, the way in which endogenous glucocorticoids secreted during immunological challenge influence the neuroendocrine system and behavior of lactating rats is not well understood. To evaluate the effects of glucocorticoids on the neuroendocrine response to suckling, maternal behavior and maternal anxiolysis, lactating female rats were treated with vehicle or metyrapone prior to the administration of a saline solution or a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) solution. LPS treatment reduced oxytocin and prolactin secretion during suckling and affected a variety of maternal behaviors, such as increasing the latency of retrieval a new nest, decreasing the number of pups gathered to the nest, increasing the latency of retrieving the first pup and decreasing the percentage of time spent in the arched-nursing position. In addition, the LPS treatment increased the baseline and avoidance latencies in an elevated T-maze. Pretreatment with metyrapone counteracted effects produced by LPS, including hormonal and behavioral responses in lactating rats. Taken together, our results indicate that stress induced by LPS treatment attenuates the neuroendocrine response to suckling, followed by disruption of maternal behavior and maternal anxiolysis in lactating female rats. These changes may be due to corticosterone release, as evidenced by the reversal of behavioral and neuroendocrine responses after immunological challenge in lactating rats that had been pretreated with metyrapone.

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“…Enhanced maternal stress responses in lactating rats were observed under specific conditions of concurrent life‐threatening stress on both the mother and the infant. Indeed, the state of wellness of pups is known to be a determinant factor in enhanced maternal HPA activity (43) and behavioural responsiveness (43–45). In the present experiments, inducing mild stress by watching an emotional film evoking maternal worries did not enhance cortisol reactivity in breastfeeding mothers compared to the magnitude of the response to the TSST.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiparity Reveals the Blunting Effect of Breastfeeding on Physiological Reactivity to Psychological Stress

Lupien

Walker

2006

J Neuroendocrinology

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Rat studies show that hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) responsiveness to physical and emotional stressors is attenuated during lactation, although situations evoking pup endangerment can supersede this phenomenon. In the human population, blunted cortisol responses are seen in primiparous breastfeeding compared to bottlefeeding mothers following physical stress, but not after psychosocial stress. It is currently unknown whether stressor salience (child-related versus nonrelated stressor) has a differential effect on cortisol reactivity as a function of infant feeding choice and whether HPA responses to stress could be modified by parity. We investigated the impact of infant feeding type and maternal parity on salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase response to stress in 5-20-week postpartum mothers using exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and to an emotional film evoking threats to a child. Analyses show that alpha-amylase responses were similar in all groups and for both types of stress, suggesting that sympathetic reactivity was independent of infant feeding type and parity. By contrast, cortisol response was affected by these variables. In primiparous mothers, cortisol reactivity to psychological stressors did not vary as a function of infant feeding type while, among multiparous mothers, breastfeeding was associated with reduced responsiveness to the TSST and child-related stressor. We speculate that changes in neural mechanisms occurring as a result of pregnancy and lactation and that modulate the HPA axis in women might be exacerbated with multiple repeats of the pregnancy/lactation period. This would serve to 'desensitise' stress circuits and reduce the overall stress-induced cortisol secretion after multiple births.

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Pituitary–Adrenal Responsiveness of Rat Mothers to Noxious Stimuli and Stimuli Produced by Pups

Cited by 25 publications

References 53 publications

Selective Breeding for Divergence in Novelty-seeking Traits: Heritability and Enrichment in Spontaneous Anxiety-related Behaviors

Selective Breeding for Divergence in Novelty-seeking Traits: Heritability and Enrichment in Spontaneous Anxiety-related Behaviors

Corticosterone Synthesis Inhibitor Metyrapone Preserves Changes in Maternal Behavior and Neuroendocrine Responses during Immunological Challenge in Lactating Rats

Multiparity Reveals the Blunting Effect of Breastfeeding on Physiological Reactivity to Psychological Stress

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