Maternal separation changes maternal care, anxiety‐like behaviour and expression of paraventricular oxytocin and corticotrophin‐releasing factor immunoreactivity in lactating rats

The early postnatal period is a time of tremendous change for the dam and her offspring. During this time, environmental insults such as repeated stress exposure can have detrimental effects. In research that has focused on the effect of postnatal stress exposure on the dams, conflicting changes in maternal care and anxiety‐like behaviour have been reported. Additionally, changes to hypothalamic neuropeptides that are crucially involved in the...