Our results show that MS doesnot produce any effect in object recognition capacity at these ages. Moreover, there are not significant differences in measured parameters of non-spatial memory neither sexes nor ages. However, spatial memory is apparently better in male than female adolescents. As time goes by an improvement on object location ability occurs only in females. As a result of that, the differences between sexes in young rats disappear in the adults. According to our results, only males are affected by maternal separation in a different manner depending on age. Therefore, MS impair spatial memory in adolescent male rats. As a direct consequence separated adolescent males has the same spatial memory than separated females. Nevertheless, MS improve spatial memory in adult males. The effect of MS in adults generates similar sexual differences showed in non-separated younger rats.In conclusion, we observed that maternal separation does not affect object recognition ability but it leads to long-term spatial memory changes, mainly in males, which are different owing to age.The neonatal brain contains high levels of taurine. As the brain matures its taurine content declines and reaches stable adult concentrations that are second to those of glutamate, the principal excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. Taurine levels in the brain significantly increase under stressful conditions, suggesting that taurine may play a vital role in neuroprotection. These neuroprotective effects of taurine could also contribute to the improvement of cognitive functions observed after chronic supplementation with taurine. In this study, we examined the possible modifications on brain taurine induced by neonatal stressors of both males and females in adulthood. Neonatal stress utilised in the present study was maternal separation (MS) 5 h/day during the 2 first weeks of life. Tissue taurine was determined in perchloric acid extracts of the striatum, septum, dorsal hippocampus and ventral hippocampus of the rats. Aminoacid content was assayed by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and electrochemical detection using a modification of the procedure of Smith and Sharp. Our results demonstrate that the stress of maternal separation produces a decrease of taurine levels in adult females in all brain studied areas. However, no changes were observed on brain taurine in male rats. These results show a sexual dimorphism in the long-term response from the stress of maternal separation. This is in line with research that advocates that there is a sexual differentiation in the response to stress. Interestingly we did not observe alterations in either glutamate or GABA brain in male and females adult rats in response to maternal separation during the SHRP. This study suggests that taurine mainly in females can have an important role in the functional alterations observed in adult rats that have been separated from the mother during early postnatal development.Beside the well known particular morphological and physiological traits, path...
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