TY - THES ID - 139163814 TI - Assessment of early mother-infant interactions and juvenile maternal bonding in mice AU - Villca Ponce, Gustavo AU - Stroobants, Stijn AU - D'Hooge, Rudi AU - KU Leuven. Faculteit Psychologie en Pedagogische Wetenschappen. Opleiding Master of Psychology. Theory and Research (Leuven) PY - 2019 PB - Leuven KU Leuven. Faculteit Psychologie en Pedagogische Wetenschappen DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:139163814 AB - Mother infant interactions are know to play an important role in the formation of maternal bonding in humans and in mice. Mouse studies can help to elucidate on the underlying mechanisms that influence maternal bonding in humans, for this reason the development of protocols capable to assess maternal bonding in mice has arisen. This study has aimed to assess whether a adapted radial-arm maze is able to reliably measure infant-to-mother bonding in juvenile mice and if expression of maternal preference changes between two crucial stages , namely, p21 and p28. Furthermore, to assess whether changes in mother-pup interactions lead to differences in neonatal and juvenile infant-to-mother interaction, two different C57BL/6 groups of mice have been tested. One group underwent prenatal VPA while the other group was comprised of control mice, prenatal VPA exposure has been shown to disrupt early mother-infant interaction. Lastly, to explore if evidence of changes in mother-infant interactions can be predictive of changes in adult functioning behaviors. A series of adult functioning tests were performed Our results could not validate the adapted radial-arm maze as a potential protocol for the assessment of infant-to-mother bonding in mice. Furthermore, no noticeable differences were found in neonatal USVs between VPA and control mice or in the adapted radial-arm maze at p21 or p28. Lastly, spatial memory was found to be impaired in VPA mice, similarly, repetitive behaviors were found to impair normal social functioning in adult VPA mice but no general social or communication functioning impairments were found. However, due to lack of evidence of changes in early mother-infant interaction, these results could not be directly attributed to impaired maternal bonding.  ER -