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Published on: May 24, 2018
The effects of early maternal deprivation on auditory information processing in adult Wistar rats
Bart A Ellenbroek1, Natasja M W J de Bruin, Peter T J M van Den Kroonenburg
1Department of Psychoneuropharmacology, Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Insights
Early life maternal deprivation in rats impairs auditory sensory gating and startle habituation. This disruption in information processing, specifically prepulse inhibition, offers insights into schizophrenia development.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Psychiatry
Background:
- Schizophrenia arises from genetic and environmental interactions affecting central nervous system development.
- Early life stress, such as maternal deprivation, can disrupt neurodevelopment.
- Maternal deprivation at postnatal day 9 in rats causes prepulse inhibition deficits, mimicking schizophrenia symptoms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To further characterize information processing deficits in maternally deprived Wistar rats.
- To investigate the long-term effects of early life stress on sensory gating and startle responses.
- To refine the animal model for studying schizophrenia-related information processing disturbances.
Main Methods:
- Wistar rats underwent a 24-hour maternal deprivation on postnatal day 9.
- Adult rats were assessed using the acoustic startle paradigm for prepulse inhibition and startle habituation.
- Auditory sensory gating was evaluated via the evoked potentials paradigm.
Main Results:
- Maternal deprivation significantly reduced acoustic startle habituation in adult rats.
- Auditory sensory gating was impaired in maternally deprived rats.
- Prepulse inhibition was disrupted by maternal deprivation, but only at short prepulse-stimulus intervals (50-100 ms).
Conclusions:
- Early life maternal deprivation induces lasting deficits in sensory gating and information processing.
- The timing of sensory input is critical for observing prepulse inhibition deficits following early life stress.
- These findings support the utility of maternal deprivation as a model for studying schizophrenia-related neurodevelopmental disturbances.
Background:
There is now ample evidence that schizophrenia is due to an interaction between genetic and (early) environmental factors which disturbs normal development of the central nervous system and ultimately leads to the development of clinical symptoms. Recently, we showed that a single 24-hour period of maternal deprivation of rat pups at postnatal day 9 leads to a disturbance in prepulse inhibition, similar to what is seen in schizophrenia. The present set of experiments was designed to further characterize the information processing deficits of maternally deprived Wistar rats.
Methods:
Wistar rats were deprived from their mother for 24 hours on postnatal day 9. At adult age, rats were tested in the acoustic startle paradigm for prepulse inhibition and startle habituation. Rats were also tested in the evoked potentials paradigm for auditory sensory gating.
Results:
The results show that maternal deprivation led to a reduction in acoustic startle habituation and auditory sensory gating in adult rats. Moreover, maternal deprivation disrupted prepulse inhibition but only when the prepulses were given shortly (50-100 milliseconds) before the startle stimulus. At longer intervals (250-1000 milliseconds), no effect was seen.
Conclusions:
The implications for the model and the development of disturbances in information processes are discussed.
