Maternal deprivation from the later infant stage to the early juvenile stage causes multiple abnormal behaviorsFrelated to autistic disorder only in male ratsF

Adverse experiences in early life have profound influences on the developing central nervous system (CNS) and change the behavior in adult life in human. To analyze the influences, one of the well-documented experimental manipulations is maternal deprivation in rats. Any types of maternal deprivations can alter pup developments in the CNS and change the behavior. Moreover, the researches provide the potential animal models of the major mental disorders caused by nurture, not nature, in human. Comprehensive behavioral test battery is frequently used to study the abnormal behaviors of mouse with targeted gene mutations. In the present study, we applied the method to the behavioral phenotyping of the rats experiencing maternal deprivation. Since sex-specific effects were observed in the maternal deprivation, we subjected both sexes of rats experiencing maternal deprivation to the comprehensive behavioral test battery consisting of general health check, neurological screening tests, 24-hour home cage activity monitoring, hanging wire test, vertical pole test, rotarod test, visual placing test, Preyer reflex test, two bottle choice test, painted odorant test, paintbrush stimulating test, light-dark exploration test, open field test, social interaction tests, prepulse inhibition (PPI) test, latent inhibition (LI) test, passive avoidance (PA) test, and novel object recognition test.