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Female pups receive more maltreatment from stressed dams
Samantha M Keller1, Anna Nowak1, Tania L Roth1
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware.
Developmental Psychobiology
|February 28, 2019
Summary
Female pups experience more adverse maternal care than males under developmental stress conditions. This sex difference in mistreatment may explain why females show more behavioral and epigenetic consequences.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Neuroscience
- Behavioral biology
Background:
- Developmental stress can lead to sex-specific outcomes.
- Previous research shows females exhibit more behavioral and epigenetic consequences from caregiver maltreatment.
- The reasons for this sex disparity in response to stress are not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate sex differences in the quality of maternal care received by pups exposed to developmental stress.
- To test the hypothesis that female pups receive more adverse maternal care compared to male pups.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing the scarcity-adversity model with low nesting resources.
- Comparing maternal care quality between male and female pups in maltreatment, cross-foster, and normal maternal care conditions.
Main Results:
- Female pups received significantly more adverse maternal care than male pups in the maltreatment condition.
- No sex difference in adverse maternal care was observed in the cross-foster or normal maternal care control groups.
Conclusions:
- Greater mistreatment by the dam is a likely contributor to the increased behavioral and epigenetic consequences observed in females exposed to developmental stress.
- These findings highlight the importance of considering sex as a biological variable in stress research.
- The quality of early life care significantly impacts sex-specific stress responses.
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