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Early weaning impairs fear extinction and decreases brain‐derived neurotrophic factor expression in the prefrontal cortex of adult male C57BL/6 mice
Author(s) -
Mogi Kazutaka,
Ishida Yuiko,
Nagasawa Miho,
Kikusui Takefumi
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.21437
Subject(s) - extinction (optical mineralogy) , weaning , neurotrophic factors , psychology , prefrontal cortex , brain derived neurotrophic factor , fear conditioning , neuroscience , medicine , endocrinology , developmental psychology , amygdala , biology , cognition , receptor , paleontology
We examined the developmental effects of early weaning on anxiety and the extinction of fear memory in male C57BL/6 mice. Early weaning led to increased freezing behaviors after fear conditioning via the foot‐shock method both during extinction training and in a test of extinction recall, but did not induce significant changes in anxiety‐like behavior. In addition, we found that the levels of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) protein and mRNA transcripts for BDNF exon III in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) at the time of extinction recall were impaired in early‐weaned mice compared to normally weaned mice. In light of consistent finding that early‐weaned mice experience greater stress at weaning, these data suggest that early weaning of male C57BL/6 mice is valuable for studies of the pathogenesis of post‐traumatic stress disorder.