Objective As an important way of early social deprivation, mother-infant separation has always been a classic animal model for studying the neurobiological mechanism of the adverse effects of early life stress on individual physiology and psychology. This article reviews the common behavioral paradigms and related biological mechanisms of MS models in rats and mice, and clarifies the different effects of the duration and frequency of mother-infant separation on experimental results.
Methods Through Wanfang, CNKI, Pubmed, and other platforms, we searched the relevant literature that used the MS model to explore the long-term cognitive and psychological effects of early life stress on rats and mice in recent years, and evaluated the behavioral evaluation methods, results, and other results in the articles. The underlying mechanism is explained.
Results The establishment of rodent MS models provides a new method for people to explore long-term psychosomatic diseases related to negative events in early life, and shows a wide range of applicability.
Conclusion At present, different researches have conducted multi-directional explorations on the cognition, psychological changes and pathogenesis of animal models on this basis, and have made certain progress. However, the cognitive and behavioral changes brought about by different separation frequencies and durations are not certain, and its influence on the gene expression of offspring and the parents needs further study.