Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation (Research Center for Taste and Feeding Behavior), CNRS UMR, 6265, INRA 1324, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France.
Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon (Lyon Neuroscience Research Center) INSERM U1028, CNRS UMR 5292, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France.
J Anat. 2018 May;232(5):747-767. doi: 10.1111/joa.12789. Epub 2018 Feb 14.
The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is a widely used model in fundamental, medical and veterinary neurosciences. Besides investigations in adults, rabbit pups are relevant to study perinatal neurodevelopment and early behaviour. To date, the rabbit is also the only species in which a pheromone - the mammary pheromone (MP) - emitted by lactating females and active on neonatal adaptation has been described. The MP is crucial since it contributes directly to nipple localisation and oral seizing in neonates, i.e. to their sucking success. It may also be one of the non-photic cues arising from the mother, which stimulates synchronisation of the circadian system during pre-visual developmental stages. Finally, the MP promotes neonatal odour associative and appetitive conditioning in a remarkably rapid and efficient way. For these different reasons, the rabbit offers a currently unique opportunity to determine pheromonal-induced brain processing supporting adaptation early in life. Therefore, it is of interest to create a reference work of the newborn rabbit pup brain, which may constitute a tool for future multi-disciplinary and multi-approach research in this model, and allow comparisons related to the neuroethological basis of social and feeding behaviour among newborns of various species. Here, in line with existing experimental studies, and based on original observations, we propose a functional anatomical description of brain sections in 4-day-old rabbits with a particular focus on seven brain regions which appear important for neonatal perception of sensory signals emitted by the mother, circadian adaptation to the short and single daily nursing of the mother in the nest, and expression of specific motor actions involved in nipple localisation and milk intake. These brain regions involve olfactory circuits, limbic-related areas important in reward, motivation, learning and memory formation, homeostatic areas engaged in food anticipation, and regions implicated in circadian rhythm and arousal, as well as in motricity.
欧洲兔（Oryctolagus cuniculus）是基础医学、临床医学和兽医神经科学中广泛应用的模型。除了对成年兔的研究外，兔幼崽也与围产期神经发育和早期行为研究有关。迄今为止，兔子也是唯一一种描述了由哺乳期雌性分泌并作用于新生儿适应的信息素（乳腺信息素，MP）的物种。MP 至关重要，因为它直接有助于新生儿对乳头的定位和口腔抓取，即它们的吸吮成功。它也可能是来自母亲的非光刺激之一，它在视觉发育前阶段刺激昼夜节律系统的同步。最后，MP 以一种非常快速和有效的方式促进新生儿的嗅觉联想和食欲条件作用。出于这些不同的原因，兔子为确定支持生命早期适应的信息素诱导的大脑处理提供了一个目前独特的机会。因此，建立新生兔幼崽大脑的参考资料非常重要，这可能成为该模型未来多学科和多方法研究的工具，并允许与各种物种新生婴儿的社会和喂养行为的神经行为学基础进行比较。在这里，根据现有的实验研究，并基于原始观察，我们提出了 4 天大的兔子脑切片的功能解剖描述，特别关注七个脑区，这些脑区对于新生儿感知母亲发出的感觉信号、适应母亲在巢中短暂而单一的每日哺乳、以及表达与乳头定位和乳汁摄入相关的特定运动动作都很重要。这些脑区涉及嗅觉回路、与奖励、动机、学习和记忆形成相关的边缘相关区域、参与食物预期的稳态区域以及与昼夜节律和觉醒以及运动性相关的区域。
