ArticleNeurobiology of stress2026
Sensitive windows, sensitive outcomes: Early or late-postnatal maternal separation differentially impacts puberty and behavior.
Article in Neurobiology of stress, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Early-life adversity disrupts the maturation of neuroendocrine, cognitive, and emotional regulatory systems, yet outcomes likely depend on both the timing of development and sex. Maternal separation (MS) in rodents is a widely used model for studying these effects, yet the sex-specific consequences of distinct postnatal MS windows remain underexplored. Here, we investigated how early [postnatal day (P)2-P10], late (P11-P20), or prolonged MS (P2-P20) influences pubertal maturation, spatial memory, and anxiety-like behavior in male and female Sprague-Dawley rats. Pubertal development was assessed through daily visual inspection. Affective behavior was evaluated using dyadic social interaction and light-enhanced startle (LES), and spatial memory was evaluated in the delayed win-shift task during adolescence. Both postnatal timing of adversity exposure and sex influenced the measured outcomes. Females exposed to prolonged or early MS exhibited significantly earlier pubertal initiation, with no effect of MS on pubertal onset in males. Prolonged or early MS exposure also impaired spatial memory, with females affected by prolonged MS and males affected by early MS. Affective measures in males and females were differentially affected by early and late MS exposure. While only late MS exposure yielded more social approach-avoidance behavior in males, females exhibited approach-avoidance changes after both early and late MS. We replicated previous findings that PMS-exposed males display a blunted light-enhanced startle, and now show that late, but not early MS, yields reduced LES in males. Female adolescents, however, responded to
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