The effects of early stress in neurobiology depend on the nature and timing of the applied stress because development is rapid and brain plasticity at the beginning of the postnatal period is very sensitive to environmental changes. This work investigates the effects of chronic exposure to postnatal stress of mother-offspring separation on the neurobehavioral development of the offspring in adulthood throughoutthe exploration of depressive behavior on the one hand and the exploration of corticotropic hormone ACTH on the other hand. Rat pupsin the Separation Stressgroup (SS) were separated from their mothers for 3 hours daily from 9am to 12pm from the 3rd to the 14th postnatal day (n = 8).Another batch (T) underwent Notype of stress (n = 8) was subject of this study.The behavioral study was conducted using the forced swim test at D65.On day 70, a blood sample was taken after decapitation of the two groupsfor the purpose of assaying the adrenocorticotropic hormoneACTH. The results showthat early stress of maternal separation by 3 hours in adult male rats induces an increase in depressive behavior and a significant increase in the ACTH level involved in the corticotropic axis. \n \nKeywords: Postnatal stress, maternal separation, behavior, depression, ACTH

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