Department of Farm Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Pediatr Res. 2012 Jan;71(1):71-6. doi: 10.1038/pr.2011.5.
Learning impairments are often seen in children born with low birth weight (LBW). A model with translational value for long-term effects of LBW in humans is needed to further our understanding of how LBW and cognition are related. The similarities between development stages in human infants and piglets, and the high prevalence of LBW piglets make them a naturally occurring potential model in which to study cognitive impairment associated with LBW in humans.
Although both groups learned the configurations and rapidly reduced the number of incorrect visits, the LBW piglets showed a transiently retarded acquisition of the first reversal.
The results of the experiment support the hypothesis that LBW is related to (mild) subsequent cognitive impairments. In the future, piglets may be suitable models for testing the effects of putative therapeutics.
To examine this potential model, we tested pairs of LBW and NBW (normal-birth-weight) piglets in a spatial hole-board (a matrix with 4 × 4 holes in the floor) task during one acquisition and two reversal phases in their own individual configurations of rewarded holes.
出生体重低（LBW）的儿童通常存在学习障碍。为了进一步了解 LBW 和认知之间的关系，我们需要一个具有转化价值的模型来研究 LBW 对人类的长期影响。人类婴儿和仔猪的发育阶段相似，且 LBW 仔猪的发病率较高，因此仔猪自然成为研究与人类 LBW 相关的认知障碍的潜在模型。
尽管两组仔猪都学习了配置，并迅速减少了错误访问的次数，但 LBW 仔猪在第一次反转的获得上表现出短暂的延迟。
实验结果支持 LBW 与（轻度）随后的认知障碍相关的假设。将来，仔猪可能适合作为测试潜在治疗效果的模型。
为了检验这种潜在的模型，我们在空间洞板（地板上有 4×4 个孔的矩阵）任务中测试了一对 LBW 和 NBW（正常出生体重）仔猪，在其各自奖励孔的配置中进行了一次获得和两次反转阶段的测试。
