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. 2021 Jan 27;11:2335. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-81511-1

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© The Author(s) 2021

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Neural activation is independent of birth mode or birth timing. (A) c-Fos+ cell density in pups born vaginally or by C-section. Neural activation was higher at 3 h postnatal compared to E18.5 in the SCN, SON, and PVN, although this was significant only for the PVN and SON. In all three brain areas, the neural activation at 3 h postnatal was similar whether pups were delivered vaginally (black circles) or by C-section (open circles). (B) Phenotyping in the PVN showed that both VP (green) and OT (blue) neurons were activated at 3 h post-delivery compared to E18.5 (asterisk over bracket; P < 0.0001 for VP and P = 0.02 for OT), and this activation was similar whether pups were delivered vaginally or by C-section. (C) c-Fos+ cell density after an early birth. As was seen for on-time deliveries, the density of c-Fos+ cells was elevated at 3 h postnatal in the SCN, SON, and PVN in pups delivered one day early (P < 0.0001 in all cases). (D) Both VP and OT neurons in the PVN were activated 3 h after an early delivery (asterisks over bracket, ****P < 0.0001 in both cases), and the effect was greater for VP neurons (P < 0.0001). Gray shading indicates in utero timepoints; red dotted line indicates the timing of birth. Data are mean ± SEM. n = 11–13 animals per group.