Repeated Cat Odor Exposure Affects The Behavior And Physiology Of The Adolescent Female Brandt's Vole And Its Offspring

Animals affect their offspring through maternal effects after they are subjected to environmental stress,and predator stress is one of the most common environmental stresses for animals.In this experiment,the adolescent female Brandt's vole was used as the experimental object,distilled water was used as the control group,the rabbit odor was used as the negative control,and the cat's odor was used as the positive control,the behavior and physioloy of the mother and its offspring were studied,and the maternal effect of Brandt's vole was discussed when the odolescent female was exposing to different odors.The results were as followed:1.Anti-predatory behavior of adolescent female Brandt's vole under long-term cat odor stress had change,the resting time of the adolescent female Brandt's vole increased,the hidden behavior of the voles exposed to cat odors was significantly higher than that of rabbit odor and distilled water controls.At the same time,the grooming and sniffing time in the cat odor and rabbit odor groups were significantly lower than those in the distilled water group.Our experimental results show that the anti-predatory behavior of adolescent female Brandt's vole is stimulated by cat odor and the voles have not shown adaptability during long-term stress.2.Long-term cat odor stress did not cause the vole to produce anxiety-like behavior.3.The cat odor and rabbit odor exposure did not change the vole's ACTH and CORT levels and also did not change the level of corticotropin-releasing hormone(CRH)protein expression.4.Analyzed the offspring's anti-predatory behavior after the adolescent female Brandt's vole exposing the different odors,offspring's anti-predatory behavior in cat odor group was significantly higher than that in the distilled water group and rabbit odor group,however,this difference was not found in the offspring growing to adult,which might be related to the separation time between the offspring and the mother.5.The offspring's physiology after the adolescent female Brandt's vole exposing the different odors had not significantly different among the three odor groups.There had no differences in the expression levels of ACTH,CORT and CRH protein between adolescence and adult offspring.The above results indicated that the long-term effects of cat odor stress on voles and their offspring during adolescence mainly focused on anti-predatory behavior,and had little effect on physiology.The puberty female Brandt's vole could affect the offspring through the maternal effect after long-term stress,but this effect could gradually weaken after separation from the offspring.