Sub-chronic cerebrolys in treatment attenuates the long-lasting behavioral alterations caused by maternal separation in rats

Maternal separation disrupts mother-infant interactions during early life and produce long-lasting effects on physiological and behavioral processes in offspring. Maternal separation in rats can produce schizophrenia-like behaviors, such as stress hyper-reactivity, deficits in sensorimotor gating and disruption of cognitive processes and these behavioral dysfnnctions can persist throughout adulthood. A neurotrophic peptide mixture, cerebrolysin, reduces behavioral and neuropathological alterations in a neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia. This study examined the beneficial effects of sub-chronic cerebrolysin administration on long-lasting behavioral alterations caused by pre-weaning repeated maternal separation in rats. Cerebrolysin was administered daily for 4 weeks to 1 month old rats. The results showed that cerebrolysin treatment during post-pubertal age (2-3 months) reduced the hyper-reactivity to novel environment caused by maternal separation. Fwthermore, this study also demonstrated that cerebrolysin administration partially reverted maternal separation-induced alterations in the acoustic startle response and its habituation process. These results suggest that cerebrolysin may exert beneficial effects in the management of some neuropsychiatric disorders.