SynthesisTranslational psychiatry2020
Systematic review and meta-analysis: effects of maternal separation on anxiety-like behavior in rodents.
Synthesis in Translational psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 76 papers, 3 of them syntheses 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.
The trial behind it
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Who cites it
76 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 139 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Early Life Stress on the Prefrontal Cortex Transcriptome Reveals Long-Term Downregulation of Myelin-Related Gene Expression.Brain and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- "The wrong tools for the right job": a critical meta-analysis of traditional tests to assess behavioural impacts of maternal separation.Psychopharmacology · 2023Pooled it
- Deficits in hippocampal-dependent memory across different rodent models of early life stress: systematic review and meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Aversive 22-kHz ultrasonic vocalization playback reveals differences in affective (dys)function following early life adversity in male and female juvenile rats.Behavioural brain research · 2026Article
- High-resolution metabolic profiling of the effects of early-life stress after peripheral nerve injury.The journal of pain · 2026Article
- Maternal separation increases anxiety-like phenotypes, fear responses, and altersNeurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Early-life adversity in rodents: Experimental design is of the essence.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Early adversity alters neurodevelopmental milestones in male and female rat pups and motor cortex morphology and gait in juveniles.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Sensitive windows, sensitive outcomes: Early or late-postnatal maternal separation differentially impacts puberty and behavior.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Maternal separation during breastfeeding as a risk factor for developing giardiasis: evaluation in a rodent model.Gut pathogens · 2026Article
- Prenatal and neonatal housing conditions affect anxiety-like behavior in adulthood in rats and interact with brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) Val66Met to alter expression of BDNF and stress markers in the ventral hippocampus.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2026Article
- Article
- N-acetylcysteine Restores Impaired Dentate Gyrus Neurogenesis in a Neonatal Maternal Separation Rat Model.Experimental neurobiology · 2025Article
- Early life stress alters microglia in ventral hippocampus and dorsal CA2 associated with anxiety-like behavior in adolescent male rats.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Early life adversity and adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Pathways to persistence and adult susceptibility.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- Where's my mom? Resilient maternal preference in post-weaning male and female mice within a multi-chamber social behavior task.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2025Article
- Sex-Specific Effects of Early-Life Stress Exposure on Memory Performance and the Medial Prefrontal Cortex Transcriptomic Pattern in Adolescent Mice.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- Genetic diversity shapes behavioral outcomes and reveals sex differences in mice exposed to early life stress.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- FKBP51 in glutamatergic forebrain neurons promotes early life stress inoculation in female mice.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The link between early-life adversity and later alcohol use disorder: A role for microglia?Neurobiology of stress · 2025Article
16 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The mechanisms by which childhood maltreatment increases anxiety is unclear, but a propensity for increased defensive behavior in rodent models of early life stress (ELS) suggests that work in rodents may clarify important mechanistic details about this association. A key challenge in studying the effects of ELS on defensive behavior in rodents is the plethora of inconsistent results. This is particularly prominent with the maternal separation (MS) literature, one of the most commonly used ELS models in rodents. To address this issue we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis, examining the effects of MS on exploratory-defensive behavior in mice and rats using the open field test (OFT) and the elevated plus maze (EPM). This search yielded a total of 49 studies, 24 assessing the effect of MS on behavior in the EPM, 11 tested behavior in the OFT, and 14 studies provided data on both tasks. MS was associated with increased defensive behavior in rats (EPM: Hedge's g = -0.48, p = 0.02; OFT: Hedge's g = -0.33, p = 0.05), effect sizes that are consistent with the anxiogenic effect of early adversity reported in humans. In contrast, MS did not alter exploratory behavior in mice (EPM: Hedge's g = -0.04, p = 0.75; OFT: Hedge's g = -0.03, p = 0.8). There was a considerable amount of heterogeneity between studies likely related to the lack of standardization of the MS protocol. Together, these findings suggest important differences in the ability of MS to alter circuits that regulate defensive behaviors in mice and rats.
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Registered trials
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.