Early deprivation and brain development in mice as a model system for trauma-related psychiatric disorders

From an animal research prospective, there is increasing evidence that early trauma may have profound effects of later functioning of adult animals. Examples are an increased sensitivity of the HPA axis or a decreased serotonergic function in animals which were exposed to maternal separation early after birth. From a clinical prospective, trauma is regarded as a risk factor for several psychiatric disorders such as major depression or is even essential for the development of severe psychiatric disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. In these disorders, we have found evidence for disturbances in brain structure and functioning such as decreased volumes of the amygdala, the hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex, decreased NAA-levels in the prefrontal cortex and functional hyperactivity of the anterior cingulate cortex. Here, we describe a model system by which we investigate the effects of early deprivation and maternal separation of mice directly after birth for 3 weeks on brain development until adulthood. We use several technics including histological analysis, molecular approaches and brain imaging. We will present our first data on the effects of early deprivation and maternal separation on the expression of the protein rheelin, which is important for cortical layer formation and which has been shown to be downregulated in several psychiatric disorders.