Early acquisition of threat conditioning in a selectively-bred anxiety-like rat phenotype: regulation by maternal presence and FGF2

Temperament is an innate, stable predisposition towards particular emotional and behavioral responses. In humans, certain temperaments are associated with a heightened risk of developing anxiety later in life. Non-human animals, including rodents, also exhibit innate, stable dispositions; these are referred to as behavioral phenotypes. The interaction between behavioral phenotype and early life adverse events is critical for the development of maladaptive anxiety. Rodent studies of typically developing animals have identified a number of mechanisms that protect against aversive experiences in early life. One such mechanism is an early life quiescence of threat learning, which protects against the effects of stress and facilitates safety and attachment learning. However, little is known about the factors that alleviate the effects of early life aversive events on phenotypes vulnerable to pathological anxiety. Here, we examined threat learning and the stress response in selectively-bred infant rats that show an anxiety-like phenotype relative to typically developing animals. We investigated the potential roles of maternal presence and the anxiolytic neurotrophic factor fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) in regulating threat learning and the stress response in infant anxiety-like phenotype animals. We observed that rats selectively-bred for anxiety-like behaviors could acquire conditioned freezing earlier in life than typically developing animals. FGF2 administration on postnatal day 1 (PND 1) and maternal presence during threat conditioning were both capable of suppressing this early emergence of conditioned freezing. However, neither FGF2 nor maternal presence during threat conditioning were associated with reduced corticosterone levels during threat conditioning. Our results suggest that although an anxiety-like phenotype may be associated with early threat learning, environmental factors (such as maternal presence) and pharmacological intervention (such as modulation of the FGF2 system) may be capable of counteracting that early aversive learning. Interventions in vulnerable infants may thus decrease the impact of aversive events.