Early interactions with mother and peers independently build adult social skills and shape BDNF and oxytocin receptor brain levels

Summary: The early social environment has a profound impact on developmental trajectories. Although an impoverished early environment can undermine the acquisition of appropriate social skills, the specific role played by the different components of an individual's early environment in building social competencies has not been fully elucidated. Here we setup an asynchronous communal nesting paradigm in mice to disentangle the influence of maternal care and early peer interactions on adult social behavior and neural systems reportedly involved in the regulation of social interactions. The asynchronous communal nesting consists of three mothers giving birth three days apart, generating three groups of pups – the Old, the Middle and the Young – all raised in a single nest from birth to we...

via Original Article