CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Early life stressful events, such as early maternal separation lead to decreased neuronal plasticity, increased depression, and decreased cognitive abilities. On the other hand, environmental enrichment is a condition that increases sensory, social and physical stimulation and improves cognitive abilities, favoring neuronal plasticity. The aim of this study was to address the interaction of both events, maternal separation and environmental enrichment, from the ethological, behavioral and neurochemical aspects. For this purpose, an early maternal separation stress protocol of 4.5 h / day was applied to male Wistar rats until weaning and after that a post-weaning enriched environment until day 60. In the four experimental groups: NMS / NEE (without maternal separation + Without enriched environment), MS/NEE (maternal separation/without enriched environment), NMS/EE (With no maternal separation + enriched environment), SM / EE (maternal separation + enriched environment), the following behavioral tests were applied: forced swimming (to assess depression-like behaviors) and the Barnes test (to assess learning and memory). Finally, Immunodetection (Western Blot) of relative levels of BDNF-associated proteins was performed. It was observed that maternal separation has deleterious effects on learning capacity, which is reversed by environmental enrichment. Both environmental stimuli, separation and / or enrichment, had the capacity to increase memory levels regarding control animals (without maternal separation + without environmental enrichment). And finally, it was found that there are variations in TrkB full length and truncated levels, which would be associated with a neuroprotective effect against stress. Modifications were also observed in the Erk / pErk signaling cascade