Behavioral testing to study resilience and vulnerability to stress in a mouse model of gestational restraint

MIRANDA JENNIFER; GEORGIEFF ERIKA; CHERTOFF, MARIELA

San Luis

Congreso; XXXVIII Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2023

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

The gestational stress affects the trajectory of brain development, resulting in the modification of cognitive and socio-emotional functions. However, not all individuals deal on the same way to stress. In order to analyze the mechanisms of resilience to stress, we are setting up a mice model of gestational restraint in which, pregnant CF1 adult females were subjected to movement restriction for 45 min, three times per day, from GD10 to GD19. GD0 was set on the day of vaginal plug observed. Weight of dams and pups were controlled. In order to separate between resilient and susceptible mice, all pups were subjected to Splash test at 5 weeks of age. In both cases, the evaluation consisted on one first splash followed by 45 min of restraint and then other 5 min splash test. Grooming time, frequency and latency to groom was evaluated in each test. Using a PCA test we separated animals in resilient, susceptible and control animals. This analysis show us that the best variable to separate animals is the latency to groom in the second splash. Other behaviors related with anxiety and depression were analyzed in the three different groups: control, resilient and susceptible mice in order to study which consequence are observed due to gestational restriction on dams.