Objective

Separation of pups from their dam during the infancy not only has detrimental effects on the pups’ brain but also affects dams’ behavior. Postpartum stress may affect mothers’ cognitive functions. In the present study, by using a 180 min/day maternal separation (MS) paradigm, we assessed anxiety- like behavior and locomotor activity of rat dams which experienced separation from postnatal day (PND) 1 until weaning. We tried for the first time to clarify whether such separation impairs dam's performance in the Morris water maze.

Method

We assessed dams’ behavior at three time points; 24 hours, 1 week and 1 month after weaning. Therefore, the six groups consisted of control (CTRL); 24h, 1week and 1month and MS; 24h, 1week and 1month was allocated in this study.

Results

Our results revealed that although MS-24h and MS-1week groups had intact locomotor activity, MS-1month group showed less locomotor activity in the open field. Moreover, MS induced anxiety–like behavior was more pronounced in MS-1week and MS-1month dams. Spatial learning and memory was also impaired only in MS-1month dams.

Conclusion

We can conclude that MS induces cognitive impairments in dam that may appear not immediately after the separation, but a few weeks after such stressful event.