Neonatal surgical injury alters social behaviour and cortical network responses to adult incision
Early-life painful events can influence brain development and behaviour later in life, yet the neural mechanisms underlying these long-term effects remain poorly understood. In particular, exposure to pain or tissue injury during early postnatal life has been associated with altered sensory processing, emotional regulation and behavioural responses later in life. Here we investigated whether…
Painful events experienced early in life can have lasting consequences on brain development and subsequent behavior, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. This study examined the impact of early surgical pain on adult behavior and cortical network responses to injury, using a rat model. The rats underwent a hindpaw incision during early postnatal life, followed by a repeat adult surgical incision.
While early-life incision did not affect social behavior in adulthood, animals that experienced neonatal injury showed altered social behavior following repeat injury compared to those only injured as adults. The network analysis revealed that repeated injury increased beta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling within the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and theta coherence between the S1 and mPFC in animals with a history of neonatal injury, but not in the neonatally injured group.
This evidence suggests that the relationship between mPFC coupling and social interaction is influenced by the history of early-life injury, demonstrating a lasting reorganization of cortical network recruitment and brain-behavior coupling following repeat injury.
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