Gestational environmental enrichment affects offspring behavior of adolescent rats in a sex specific manner: a preliminary investigation

RIVAROLA M A; MIR F; TOSELLI ANA

Congreso; Reunion Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias (SAN 2021 Annual meeting); 2021

The maternal environment is important for embryonic brain development. We investigated whether environmental enrichment during the gestation period influences offspring behaviors in juvenile male and female rats. Pregnant rats (from gestation day 1 to 20) were housed in an enriched environment (EE) consisting of large cages for exploration, stimulating toys, running wheels and eight companions for social interaction. A control group was housed in standard cages (two per cage). After birth, litters from both groups were maintained in a standard environment until 45 postnatal day. The effects of maternal enrichment on the behavior of male and female offspring were determined by elevated plus maze (EPM), open-field (OF) and social preference test (SPT). The results showed that in EPM, female offspring of EE mothers spent more percentage of time in open arms indicating a decrease in anxiety-like behavior. In OF, male and female EE rats showed more locomotor activity and spent more time in the aversive inner zone of the maze than control rats, indicating lower emotional reactivity behavior. When examining social behavior, there is a preference for investigating the social stimulus over the object stimulus in all groups. However, EE males exhibit less time spent investigating the social stimulus compared to control males. The evidence demonstrates that maternal exposure to EE affects the behavioral trajectories of offspring in a sex-specific manner.