Postpartum scarcity-adversity disrupts maternal behavior without altering anxiety-like behavior or cognition

Exposure to postpartum resource scarcity disrupts maternal caregiving and shapes long-term offspring outcomes. However, it remains unclear whether adversity-induced alterations in maternal behavior reflect generalized changes in anxiety-like behavior or cognition. Here, we assessed maternal behavior, anxiety-like behavior, and cognitive performance in postpartum rats exposed to a scarcity-adversity paradigm from postpartum days (PD) 2-9. Consistent with prior reports, scarcity-adversity dams displayed increased insensitive pup-directed behaviors such as stepping, dragging, and shoving pups. Despite these robust alterations in adverse caregiving, scarcity-adversity dams did not differ from controls in anxiety-like behavior in the elevated zero maze (PD 3) or the open field test (PD 5). Furthermore, no between-group differences were observed in spatial working memory in the spontaneous alternation task (PD 7) or novel object recognition memory (PD 9). These findings suggest that postpartum scarcity-adversity increases adverse pup-directed behaviors without producing broad alterations in anxiety-like behavior or cognitive function. These results constrain interpretations of adversity-induced maternal behavior changes and suggest that adverse caregiving of pups is not readily explained by generalized affective or cognitive dysregulation.