Neonatal overfeeding alters adult anxiety and stress responsiveness

The neonatal nutritional environment is critical for programming the systems regulating body weight, and an inappropriate nutritional environment in early life can lead to overweight or obesity later on. In this study we demonstrate that changes to the neonatal nutritional environment, induced by changing the titter size in which the animal is raised, can alter not only body weight into adulthood, but also anxiety behaviours and stress responsiveness. These effects appear to be somewhat sex-dependent, affecting female rats more strongly than mates. Thus, Wistar rats raised in small litters, where they have greater access to their mothers' milk, weigh more in adulthood than those raised in large litter