Effect of neonatal handling on learned helplessness model of depression

Effects of early handling on amphetamine-induced locomotor activation and conditioned place preference in the adult rat

“…Nevertheless, similar negative findings (Costela et al 1995;Vallee et al 1997) and even decreases in open field locomotion (Ogawa et al 1994) have been recently reported in adult animals exposed early in life to maternal separation procedures that also were effective in producing faster post-stress recovery of corticosterone in adulthood. The particular testing situation used seems to influence the nature of the behavioral alterations observed (Vallee et al 1997).…”

“…Although early handling has been shown to delay aging-related neural and cognitive deficits (Meaney et al 1988), behavioral ramifications of these robust alterations in the hormonal response to stress following early handling remain to be fully characterized in pre-senescent animals. While there are often cited reports that early handling reduces "emotionality" in adulthood as indexed by greater locomotion and fewer boli upon exposure to a novel open field arena (e.g., Denenberg and Whimbey 1963;, some recent research has failed to confirm these findings (Costela et al 1995;Vallee et al 1997).…”

Long maternal separation has protective effects in rats exposed to activity‐based anorexia

“…Since these pioneering studies, handled animals, when tested as adults, have shown less anxiety in behavioral tests than non-handled (NH) animals. Thus, handled animals showed increased exploration and less defecation in open field tests (Costela, Tejedor-Real, Mico, & Gibert-Rahola, 1995;Levine, Haltmeyer, Karas, & Denenberg, 1967), more entries in the open arms of the elevated plus maze (Nuñez et al, 1995), more time in the open arms (Vallée et al, 1997), and exhibited a shorter latency to start eating in a new context (Caldji, Francis, Sharma, Plotsky, & Meaney, 2000). Furthermore, underlying these behavioral differences, handled animals showed an increase in glucocorticoid receptor expression in the hippocampus and frontal cortex, that is, two brain regions that have been implicated in the feedback regulation of hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) activity (Francis et al, 1996).…”

Natural variation in early parental care correlates with social behaviors in adolescent prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster)

“…A single episode of handling increases exploration in a novel environment (Bales et al, 2007), increases alloparental behavior toward novel infants (Boone et al, 2006; Bales et al, 2007, 2011), and results in formation of a species-typical partner preference, compared to the deficit seen in voles not receiving early handling (Bales et al, 2007). Early handling is often considered to be an enriching experience in that it results in changes in the animal that are typically seen as adaptive (Levine et al, 1967; Fernandez-Teruel et al, 1991; Costela et al, 1993)—they may show more moderate behavioral and physiological responses to stimuli, and greater flexibility in these responses. When compared to this brief early handling, repeated long-term maternal separation during the first few weeks postpartum results in adult offspring that display an increased HPA response to stressors (Plotsky and Meaney, 1993; Ladd et al, 1996, 2004; Liu et al, 2000; Veenema et al, 2006), increased anxiety-like behavior (Ogawa et al, 1994; Boccia and Pederson, 2001; Veenema et al, 2007), increased depression-like behavior (Veenema et al, 2006), and decreased maternal care of offspring (Boccia and Pederson, 2001).…”