Periodic maternal deprivation-induced potentiation of the negative feedback sensitivity to glucocorticoids to inhibit stress-induced adrenocortical response persists throughout the animal's life-span

Abstract In this study, it was clearly demonstrated that the enhanced negative feedback sensitivity to glucocorticoids to inhibit stress-induced adrenocortical response, which was produced by periodic maternal deprivation (PMD) treatment for the first 3 weeks of life, did persist in rats tested at 66 and 92 weeks of life, suggesting that some stressful experience during early life permanently alters the adrenocortical response to stressful stimuli. This effect of PMD was not accompanied by an increased density of glucocorticoid receptor binding sites in the hippocampus from 93-week-old rats.