Dataset Information

Mothers Do Not Show Increased Offspring Avoidance and Elevated Corticosterone Levels during Weaning Conflict in Rats.

ABSTRACT: Parent-offspring conflict is predicted to occur because offspring will demand more parental investment than is optimal for the parent, and is said to be strongest during weaning when parents reduce nursing while offspring continue to demand parental care. While weaning conflict has been shown to be stressful in offspring, little is known about the effects of weaning conflict on mothers. We hypothesized that during weaning mothers have higher levels of stress hormone (corticosterone) compared to early lactation because of increased offspring demand. Further, we predicted that if mothers are given the option to avoid offspring solicitation they would do so and show lower corticosterone levels. We tested our hypotheses in an experimental population of rats in which one group of females was given the opportunity to avoid offspring solicitation. We measured faecal corticosterone metabolite levels using a non-invasive approach, and maternal and offspring behaviours during weaning. In contrast to our predictions, we detected lower levels of corticosterone metabolites during weaning than before, irrespective of cage type. Further, during weaning mothers did not show increased offspring avoidance behaviour although offspring solicitation increased significantly. Our results therefore cast doubt on the generally accepted notion of weaning conflict as a stressful period for mothers characterized by overt offspring solicitation.

SUBMITTER: Cox C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5035065 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mothers Do Not Show Increased Offspring Avoidance and Elevated Corticosterone Levels during Weaning Conflict in Rats.

Cox Charlotte C Hager Reinmar R

PloS one 20160923 9

Parent-offspring conflict is predicted to occur because offspring will demand more parental investment than is optimal for the parent, and is said to be strongest during weaning when parents reduce nursing while offspring continue to demand parental care. While weaning conflict has been shown to be stressful in offspring, little is known about the effects of weaning conflict on mothers. We hypothesized that during weaning mothers have higher levels of stress hormone (corticosterone) compared to ...[more]

PMID: 27662366

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Project description:BackgroundDecision-making under approach-avoidance conflict (AAC; e.g., sacrificing quality of life to avoid feared outcomes) may be affected in multiple psychiatric disorders. Recently, we used a computational (active inference) model to characterize information processing differences during AAC in individuals with depression, anxiety and/or substance use disorders. Individuals with psychiatric disorders exhibited increased decision uncertainty (DU) and reduced sensitivity to unpleasant stimuli. This preregistered study aimed to determine the replicability of this processing dysfunction.MethodsA new sample of participants completed the AAC task. Individual-level computational parameter estimates, reflecting decision uncertainty and sensitivity to unpleasant stimuli ("emotion conflict"; EC), were obtained and compared between groups. Subsequent analyses combining the prior and current samples allowed assessment of narrower disorder categories.ResultsThe sample in the present study included 480 participants: 97 healthy controls, 175 individuals with substance use disorders and 208 individuals with depression and/or anxiety disorders. Individuals with substance use disorders showed higher DU and lower EC values than healthy controls. The EC values were lower in females, but not males, with depression and/or anxiety disorders than in healthy controls. However, the previously observed difference in DU between participants with depression and/or anxiety disorders and healthy controls did not replicate. Analyses of specific disorders in the combined samples indicated that effects were common across different substance use disorders and affective disorders.LimitationsThere were differences, although with small effect size, in age and baseline intellectual functioning between the previous and current sample, which may have affected replication of DU differences in participants with depression and/or anxiety disorders.ConclusionThe now robust evidence base for these clinical group differences motivates specific questions that should be addressed in future research: can DU and EC become behavioural treatment targets, and can we identify neural substrates of DU and EC that could be used to measure severity of dysfunction or as neuromodulatory treatment targets?

Project description:Animal approach-avoidance conflict paradigms have been used extensively to operationalize anxiety, quantify the effects of anxiolytic agents, and probe the neural basis of fear and anxiety. Results from human neuroimaging studies support that a frontal-striatal-amygdala neural circuitry is important for approach-avoidance learning. However, the neural basis of decision-making is much less clear in this context. Thus, we combined a recently developed human approach-avoidance paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify neural substrates underlying approach-avoidance conflict decision-making. Fifteen healthy adults completed the approach-avoidance conflict (AAC) paradigm during fMRI. Analyses of variance were used to compare conflict to nonconflict (avoid-threat and approach-reward) conditions and to compare level of reward points offered during the decision phase. Trial-by-trial amplitude modulation analyses were used to delineate brain areas underlying decision-making in the context of approach/avoidance behavior. Conflict trials as compared to the nonconflict trials elicited greater activation within bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, and caudate, as well as right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). Right caudate and lateral PFC activation was modulated by level of reward offered. Individuals who showed greater caudate activation exhibited less approach behavior. On a trial-by-trial basis, greater right lateral PFC activation related to less approach behavior. Taken together, results suggest that the degree of activation within prefrontal-striatal-insula circuitry determines the degree of approach versus avoidance decision-making. Moreover, the degree of caudate and lateral PFC activation related to individual differences in approach-avoidance decision-making. Therefore, the approach-avoidance conflict paradigm is ideally suited to probe anxiety-related processing differences during approach-avoidance decision-making.

Dataset Information

Mothers Do Not Show Increased Offspring Avoidance and Elevated Corticosterone Levels during Weaning Conflict in Rats.

Publications

Mothers Do Not Show Increased Offspring Avoidance and Elevated Corticosterone Levels during Weaning Conflict in Rats.

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