【Animal Modeling】-The influence of mother-infant separation stress on the behavior of rd newborn mice

  Purpose: rd mice are genetic retinal degeneration mice that spontaneously cause blindness at about 1 week of birth. The mother-infant separation stress experiment was used to detect its effect on the anxiety-like and depression-like behaviors of rd newborn mice, and to preliminarily evaluate whether rd mice can become a new model for the study of eye diseases and anxiety and depression.

  Method: The rd mice on the first day of birth were divided into a mother-infant separation group (n=9) and a control group (n=9). The mother-infant separation group was separated from the mother mouse for 4 hours every day for a total of 28 days. Starting from the 29th day, the behavior test experiment was used to detect the anxiety-like behaviors of the mother-infant separation group and the control group in the open field experiment and the cross elevated experiment through the Smart3 animal behavior tracking software, and the depression-like behavior in the forced swimming experiment and the tail suspension experiment .

  Results: In the open field experiment, the ratio of time (0.88%) and the distance of movement (28.17±5.65) cm of the mother-infant separation group in the center of the open field were significantly less than those of the control group (2.61%, 109.9±9.79 cm; P=0.04 , P=0.001); in the cross elevated experiment, the mother-infant separation group spent (40.64±4.13) s in the open arm significantly less than the control group (91.73±11.26 s, P<0.01); in the forced swimming experiment, the mother The immobility time of the infant separation group (126.5±10.22) s was significantly longer than that of the control group (77.75±16.83 s, P=0.02); in the tail suspension experiment, the immobility time of the mother-infant separation group was (21.56±6.83) s more In the control group (7.37±3.22 s, P=0.03).

  Conclusion: 28-day stress after mother-infant separation in rd mice can significantly increase anxiety-like behaviors and depression-like behaviors in rd mice.