Maternal Immune Activation in Rats

Adult Wistar rats were purchased from Charles River (Sulzfeld, Germany) and housed under standard conditions with a room temperature of 23 °C, 12/12 h light/dark cycle (lights on at 6:00 am) and ad libitum access to water and food. A set of pregnant females (n = 22) was generated as previously described [30 (link),33 (link)] and randomly divided into two equal groups: (1) control and (2) MIA. All procedures were performed under the approval of the Animal Care Committee of the Maj Institute of Pharmacology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow and followed the recommendations of the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science and Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (consent numbers: 236/2016 and 128/2018). All possible efforts were made to minimize the number of animals used and their suffering.