Longitudinal Effects of Gestational Restraint Stress on Maternal Behavior and Offspring Social Phenotypes: Uncovering Stress Resilience and Susceptibility

Gestational stress alters the trajectory of brain development, leading to changes in cognitive and socioemotional functions. However, individual responses to stress vary, with some offspring exhibiting resilience while others display heightened vulnerability. To investigate the mechanisms underlying stress resilience, we employed a gestational restraint stress model in which pregnant CF1 females were subjected to a movement restriction protocol from gestational day 10 to 19. Maternal body weight gain was tracked throughout pregnancy, revealing significant weight variation between stressed and non-stressed dams. Following delivery, early maternal care behaviors, including pup-directed care, self-grooming, and time out of the nest, were evaluated during the first five postpartum days. Once offspring reached adulthood, they underwent several behavioral tests. Immediately following an acute restraint of 45 minutes, the splash test was used to classify animals into resilient and susceptible phenotypes. Additionally, social interaction was evaluated using the three-chamber test to determine social preference over a novel object, differentiating resilient from susceptible individuals. Subsequently, social memory was assessed by exposing subjects to a familiar versus a novel mouse in the three-chamber paradigm to evaluate whether social recognition performance differed according to stress resilience phenotype.