The influence of parental social experience of offspring novelty-exploring and drepression-like behavior

Abstract

The influence of parental social experience on the offspring neurodevelopment and its own susceptibility to the sculpting effect of social experience are not well understood. Using rat model we aimed to examine whether and how social experience of adolescent parents impacts psychophysical characteristics of their offspring, during pre-weaning period and later during adolescent growing in defined social conditions. Methods: Peripubertal Wistar rats (both sexes) were randomly selected for group housing (GH; n=3 per cage) or single housing (SH; n=1 per cage) at postnatal day (P) 29 and left undisturbed until P55. Thereafter, they were grouped for mating (SH males with SH females, GH males with GH females). Body weight (BW) of pups was monitored at P7, P14, and P21. At P17 motor activity of the offspring was monitored; at P29 the animals were subjected to GH or SH; after 1 week (P36) and 2 weeks (P43) their motor activity was monitored; at P45 they were subjected to sucrose preference test (SPT). Results: The male offspring of SH parents had decreased locomotor activity in a novel open arena, at P17. At P36 and P43, adolescent SH offspring showed hypolocomotion in a novel arena and hypohedonic behavior in SPT compared to GH counterparts, regardless of parental experience. BW did not differ between groups. Conclusions: Parental social experience influences novelty-exploring behavior of offspring, producing response below expected at P17. With further offspring development, their individual social experience has stronger impact on the appearance of depression-like phenotypes than parental social experience.