Figure 1.

Social and emotional abnormalities in pups experiencing ELS and the role of oxytocin therapy. Generally, dam mice exhibit parenting behaviors such as nest building, pup retrieval, grooming, and licking, whereas unproductive virgin mice generally neglect pups. Virgin mice can learn parenting skills upon oxytocin administration. When mothers are briefly separated from pups daily without interruption, dam mice will neglect pups, and this establishes an ELS model for mice. ELS mice have altered levels of anxiety, depression, and socialization compared to normal mice in many experiments, and this may contribute to the increased vulnerability to stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders such as SAD, depression, and ASD in both ELS mice and humans in later life. In these disorders, treatment with oxytocin partially alleviates symptoms. ELS—early-life stress; WT—wild type; MS—maternal separation; SAD—social anxiety disorder; ASD—autism spectrum disorder.