A Novel Early Life Stress Model Affects Brain Development and Behavior in Mice

Abstract

Early life stress (ELS) in developing children has been linked to physical and psychological sequelae in adulthood. In the present study, we investigated the effects of ELS on brain and behavioral development by establishing a novel ELS model that combined the maternal separation paradigm and mesh platform condition. We found that the novel ELS model caused anxiety- and depression-like behaviors and induced social deficits and memory impairment in the offspring of mice. In particular, the novel ELS model induced more enhanced depression-like behavior and memory impairment than the maternal separation model, which is the established ELS model. Furthermore, the novel ELS caused upregulation of arginine vasopressin expression and downregulation of GABAergic interneuron markers, such as parvalbumin (PV), vasoactive intestinal peptide, and calbindin-D28k (CaBP-28k), in the brains of the mice. Finally, the offspring in the novel ELS model showed a decreased number of cortical PV-, CaBP-28k-positive cells and an increased number of cortical ionized calcium-binding adaptors-positive cells in their brains compared to mice in the established ELS model. Collectively, these results indicated that the novel ELS model induced more negative effects on brain and behavioral development than the established ELS model.