Maternal care is crucial for offspring development and licking/grooming patterns can be induced by sensorial, neuroendocrine, and metabolic variations in the CNS. Important brain functions, such as learning and memory, can be influenced by oxidative stress, which can also modulate pathophysiological processes (e.g., depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric disorders). This study evaluated oxi...

Mammalian nervous system is plastic, particularly during early stages of development. Rat neonates that are reared without mothers, grow up to show deficient maternal behavior towards their own offspring. The purpose of this study was to assess whether maternal behavior deficits, seen in artificially-reared (AR) female rats, are associated with attentional deficits. Female rat pups were reared ...

The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is implicated in mood regulation, control of impulsive behavior, and in processing aversive and reward-related signals. DRN neurons show phasic responses to sensory stimuli, but whether association with reward modulates these responses is unknown. We recorded DRN neurons from rats in a contextual conditioned approach paradigm in which an auditory cue was either fo...

BACKGROUND Cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) is a unique member of the serine/threonine kinase family. This kinase plays an important role in neuronal development, and deregulation of its activity leads to neurodegenerative disorders. Cdk5 also serves an important function in the regulation of nociceptive signaling. Our previous studies revealed that the expression of Cdk5 and its activator, p35...

Housing affects social behaviors, such as competition, but little work has addressed affiliative behaviors. This study compared social licking (SL) in pregnant heifers housed indoors (in a free-stall barn) versus outdoors (on pasture), and relationships with competition, feeding and physical proximity to others. Six heifer groups were observed during two six-hour-periods in both treatments. The...

Rat maternal behavior is a complex social behavior. Most antipsychotic drugs disrupt active maternal responses (e.g., pup retrieval, pup licking and nest building). Our previous work shows that typical antipsychotic haloperidol disrupts maternal behavior by blocking dopamine D(2) receptors, whereas atypical clozapine works by blocking 5-HT(2A/2C) receptors. The present study used c-Fos immunohi...

In the laboratory rat and mouse, neonatal handling enhances hippocampal-dependent learning in adulthood, an effect mediated by changes in maternal behavior toward the handled young. In the present study, we examined the interaction between neonatal handling and biparental care during the early postnatal period and its effect on cognitive function in adult California mice (Peromyscus californicu...

The lateral medullary reticular formation (RF) is the source of many preoromotor neurons and is essential for generation of ingestive consummatory responses. Although the neurochemistry mediating these responses is poorly understood, studies of fictive mastication suggest that both excitatory and inhibitory amino acid receptors play important roles in the generation of these ororhythmic behavio...