Fifty years ago, Seymour Levine and Victor Denenberg showed that small alterations in their environment led to lasting changes in rats’ development, behavior, and response to stress. Something as seemingly inconsequential as five minutes of human handling during a rat’s infancy produced lifelong beneficial changes. We now understand through the research efforts of Michael Meany and Paul Plotsky that the effects of brief handling were highly beneficial and were due to increased maternal attention. Those pups whose mothers spontaneously lick and groom them the most (about one-third in a laboratory setting) display the same benefits as the rats with the human handling. By contrast, long isolation produces stress that has a deleterious effect on brain and behavior development.
Copyright 2008 The Dana Foundation All Rights Reserved danainfo@dana.org
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