Abstract

Alcohol use disorder can in some cases been attributed to adverse early life environments such as those characterized by maternal neglect. In rodents we can investigate maternal care by looking at the frequency of licking/grooming behavior. High licking/grooming female offspring Long Evan rats were used in a study investigating the effect of maternal care in rats on the expression of the delta subunit of the GABA-A receptor in High licking/grooming (LG) and Low LG groups based on the relative frequencies of LG behaviors exhibited the first week postnatal. We expect to see that Low licking/grooming groups will have greater GABA-A delta receptor expression in the hippocampus relative to High licking/grooming groups.