About
In this project, we aim to evaluate the long-term impact of maternal separation (MS) on social recognition behavior, exploring the interaction between corticosterone, the primary product of the HPA axis, and oxytocin (OT). This early adverse event will be induced during two distinct "developmental windows" to assess vulnerable periods for MS's programming effects on social recognition capacity.
Oxytocin is a crucial neuropeptide associated with various social behaviors, including aggression, affiliation, sexual behaviors, and social cognition in both humans and animals. The efficacy of OT is mediated by its receptor, widely distributed in the brain, whose expression changes throughout development, indicating a potential role in social behavior maturation. These data, along with the high prevalence of the OT receptor in stress-sensitive brain regions, suggest the oxytocinergic system as a pathway sensitive to early stress effects, particularly the HPA axis. This bidirectional relationship between the HPA axis and oxytocin has been widely demonstrated, revealing opposing actions of both systems.
Early life adversity has a critical impact on development and long-term consequences for various diseases, particularly psychopathology. Animal models of mother-infant relationship disruption have shown to be highly deleterious, leading to diverse immediate and long-term behavioral sequelae. Despite exploring distinct behavioral and neuroendocrine domains to assess early stress impact, the consequences on adult social behavior and the oxytocinergic system have been underestimated. Animal studies on poor maternal care models have shown alterations in aggressive behavior, while others report inconclusive results in social recognition tests following MS. Although these studies highlight the relationship between adverse experiences and social behavior, they do not demonstrate the molecular and neural mechanisms underlying this association. This proposal aims to understand the role of early stress in the maturation of SR competencies and bridge existing gaps in the literature between social behavioral phenotypes and neural correlates of the oxytocinergic system.
