Sadoun A, Strelnikov K, Bonté E, Fonta C, Girard P
Université de Toulouse; UPS; Centre de Recherche Cerveau et Cognition; Toulouse, France.
CerCo, CNRS UMR 5549, Toulouse, France.
Sci Rep. 2015 Nov 3;5:16046. doi: 10.1038/srep16046.
The number of studies that use the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) in various fields of neurosciences is increasing dramatically. In general, animals enter the study when their health status is considered satisfactory on the basis of classical clinical investigations. In behavioral studies, variations of score between individuals are frequently observed, some of them being considered as poor performers or outliers. Experimenters rarely consider the fact that it could be related to some brain anomaly. This raises the important issue of the reliability of such classical behavioral approaches without using complementary imaging, especially in animals lacking striking external clinical signs. Here we report the case of a young marmoset which presented a set of cognitive impairments in two different tasks compared to other age-matched animals. Brain imaging revealed a patent right lateral ventricular enlargement with a mild hippocampal atrophy. This abnormality could explain the cognitive impairments of this animal. Such a case points to the importance of complementing behavioral studies by imaging explorations to avoid experimental bias.
在神经科学各个领域使用普通狨猴（Callithrix jacchus）的研究数量正在急剧增加。一般来说，根据经典临床检查，当动物的健康状况被认为令人满意时，它们就会进入研究。在行为研究中，经常观察到个体之间得分的差异，其中一些被认为是表现不佳者或异常值。实验者很少考虑到这可能与某些脑异常有关。这就提出了一个重要问题，即在不使用补充成像的情况下，这种经典行为方法的可靠性如何，特别是在缺乏明显外部临床体征的动物中。在此，我们报告一例年轻狨猴的病例，与其他年龄匹配的动物相比，它在两项不同任务中表现出一系列认知障碍。脑成像显示右侧脑室明显扩大并伴有轻度海马萎缩。这种异常可以解释该动物的认知障碍。这样的案例指出了通过成像探索来补充行为研究以避免实验偏差的重要性。
