Natural Resource Sciences, Macdonald Campus, McGill University, 21 111 Lakeshore Drive, Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3V9.
Physiol Behav. 2013 Feb 17;110-111:115-21. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2013.01.005. Epub 2013 Jan 11.
Species use torpor, an extreme form of heterothermy, to survive periods of limited resource supply. Studies of hibernating animals have shown that torpor causes major structural and physiological changes in the brain, many of which are reversed during periodic arousals. This suggests that behaviour may change during and following the hibernation period. Here we investigate individual performance in behavioural tests prior to and during hibernation by captive eastern chipmunks (Tamias striatus). Results indicate an association between deep torpor expression and atypical habituation patterns tested directly following torpor arousals. However, no association was found between torpor expression and spatial maze performance tested more than 24h post-arousal. Therefore, any behavioural impairment induced by torpor appears to be highly transient. The detected association between torpor and behaviour may be driven by previously confirmed effects of torpor on brain structure and function, though other potential covariates, such as the activation and deactivation of the stress axis, warrant consideration. Thus, our results are consistent with transient behavioural impairments following torpor arousals, but the causes and longer-term consequences of these transient impairments remain unclear.
物种利用蛰伏，一种极端的异温形式，来度过资源供应有限的时期。对冬眠动物的研究表明，蛰伏会导致大脑发生重大的结构和生理变化，其中许多变化在周期性苏醒期间得到逆转。这表明行为可能在冬眠期间和之后发生变化。在这里，我们通过圈养的东部花栗鼠（Tamias striatus）研究了冬眠前和冬眠期间个体在行为测试中的表现。结果表明，深度蛰伏表达与蛰伏苏醒后直接测试的非典型习惯化模式之间存在关联。然而，在苏醒后 24 小时以上测试空间迷宫表现时，没有发现蛰伏表达与行为之间的关联。因此，蛰伏引起的任何行为障碍似乎都是高度短暂的。蛰伏与行为之间的关联可能是由先前确认的蛰伏对大脑结构和功能的影响驱动的，尽管其他潜在的协变量，如应激轴的激活和失活，值得考虑。因此，我们的结果与蛰伏苏醒后短暂的行为障碍一致，但这些短暂障碍的原因和长期后果仍不清楚。
