FIGURE 3.

Effects of prenatal stress on the maternal behavior of the breeders used to generate the offspring tested in the study. The maternal behavior of a subset of all breeders (n = 6 for each stress condition) was observed in their home-cages twice a day for 1 h (at 9.00 a.m. and at 5.00 p.m.) from PND 1 to PND 6, using an instantaneous sampling method (one sampling/2 min). The following items were scored as absolute frequencies by an observer who was blind to the experimental conditions of the breeders (Champagne et al., 2007; Curley et al., 2012; Oddi et al., 2015): (i) nursing postures, including arched-back nursing (the female is in an arched position over the nursing pups, A) and blanket (the female is lying flat on top of the pups, B), (ii) licking/grooming of the pups (C), (iii) non-nursing postures (the female is in contact with the pups, but not nursing, i.e., with no access to the nipples, D). All behaviors were illustrated across 2-day blocks (b1, b2, b3). *p < 0.05 from the ANOVA with stress as the between-subject factor and 2-day blocks as the within-subject variable leading to a significant main effect of stress (B,C). Data are expressed as mean ± SEM.