ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2011
Litter gender composition and sex affect maternal behavior and DNA methylation levels of the oprm1 gene in rat offspring.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- How Early Life Stress Impact Maternal Care: A Systematic Review of Rodent Studies.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2019Pooled it
- On the importance of including both sexes in animal studies - insights from home-cage monitoring.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Maternal separation increases anxiety-like phenotypes, fear responses, and altersNeurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Litter sex composition influences plasma prolactin levels but not the melanin-concentrating hormone immunoreactive neurons in the medial preoptic area of late lactating Long-Evans rats.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Paternal alcohol exposure reduces acquisition of operant alcohol self-administration and affects Bdnf DNA methylation in male and female offspring.Addiction biology · 2022Article
- Early-Life Stress Reprograms Stress-Coping Abilities in Male and Female Juvenile Rats.Molecular neurobiology · 2021Article
- The Influence of Oxytocin on Maternal Care in Lactating Dogs.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Exposure to elevated embryonic kynurenine in rats: Sex-dependent learning and memory impairments in adult offspring.Neurobiology of learning and memory · 2020Article
- Epigenomics and gene regulation in mammalian social systems.Current zoology · 2020Article
- Preconception maternal cocaine self-administration increases the reinforcing efficacy of cocaine in male offspring.Psychopharmacology · 2019Article
- Reproductive experience alters the involvement of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in fear extinction, but not fear conditioning, in female Sprague Dawley rats.Psychopharmacology · 2019Article
- Pharmacological Manipulation of DNA Methylation in Adult Female Rats Normalizes Behavioral Consequences of Early-Life Maltreatment.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2018Article
- Caregiver maltreatment causes altered neuronal DNA methylation in female rodents.Development and psychopathology · 2017Article
- Increased exposure to sodium during pregnancy and lactation changes basal and induced behavioral and neuroendocrine responses in adult male offspring.Physiological reports · 2017Article
- Insight from animal models of environmentally driven epigenetic changes in the developing and adult brain.Development and psychopathology · 2016Review
- Why we should consider sex (and study sex differences) in addiction research.Addiction biology · 2016Review
- Exposure to opiates in female adolescents alters mu opiate receptor expression and increases the rewarding effects of morphine in future offspring.Neuropharmacology · 2016Article
- Environmental influences on the female epigenome and behavior.Environmental epigenetics · 2016Article
- Two-hit exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls at gestational and juvenile life stages: 2. Sex-specific neuromolecular effects in the brain.Molecular and cellular endocrinology · 2016Article
- Neurogenetic and epigenetic correlates of adolescent predisposition to and risk for addictive behaviors as a function of prefrontal cortex dysregulation.Journal of child and adolescent psychopharmacology · 2015Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The mu-opioid receptor is encoded by the Oprm1 gene and contributes to mother-infant behaviors. Rodent dams lick male pups more than female pups in the anogenital region. This behavior is linked to stress responsivity in the offspring that may be mediated by epigenetic changes. We hypothesized that maternal behavior may affect DNA methylation levels of the Oprm1 gene and show sex differences. To further explore sex differences in mother-pup behaviors and DNA methylation levels, we altered the litter gender composition (LGC) of rats. Litters were culled to eight all male, all female, or four male/four female pups on postnatal (PN) day 1. On PN4, 7, and 10, a dam was placed in a test cage with a pup for a 10-min period. Latency to pup contact was determined as were times spent licking the anogenital and other body regions of the pup. Frequencies of other behaviors were tabulated. On PN35, samples from various brain regions were obtained. DNA methylation at specific CpG sites in the Oprm1 promoter region were measured by direct sequencing of bisulfite-treated DNA. LGC and sex interacted with day for latency to pup contact. Latencies were longest on PN4 for single-sex males and on PN10 for single-sex females. Dams licked male pups more than female pups in both the anogenital and other body areas. Sex differences were seen in other behaviors. LGC altered DNA methylation at specific CpG's of Oprm1 in hippocampus with higher levels in single-sex rats. In nucleus accumbens, single-sex males showed hypermethylation levels, a trend seen in caudate-putamen. Results confirm and extend sex differences in maternal care with modest LGC effects. That both LGC and sex have enduring effects on DNA methylation of the Oprm1 gene in brain regions associated with addiction, stress regulation, motivation, and cognition may suggest one factor that contributes to gender differences in these behaviors.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.