Winters Carmen, Gorssen Wim, Wöhr Markus, D'Hooge Rudi
Laboratory of Biological Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2023 Mar 3;17:1139254. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1139254. eCollection 2023.
Vital early-life dyadic interaction in mice requires a pup to signal its needs adequately, and a dam to recognize and respond to the pup's cues accurately and timely. Previous research might have missed important biological and/or environmental elements of this complex bidirectional interaction, because it often focused on one dyadic member only. In laboratory rodents, the Pup Retrieval Test (PRT) is the leading procedure to assess pup-directed maternal care. The present study describes BAMBI (Bidirectional Automated Mother-pup Behavioral Interaction test), a novel automated PRT methodology based on synchronous video recording of maternal behavior and audio recording of pup vocalizations, which allows to assess bidirectional dam-pup dyadic interaction. We were able to estimate pup retrieval and pup vocalization parameters accurately in 156 pups from 29 dams on postnatal days (PND) 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. Moreover, we showed an association between number of emitted USVs and retrieval success, indicating dyadic interdependency and bidirectionality. BAMBI is a promising new automated home-cage behavioral method that can be applied to both basic and preclinical studies investigating complex phenotypes related to early-life social development.
小鼠早期重要的二元互动需要幼崽充分发出需求信号，母鼠准确、及时地识别并回应幼崽的信号。以往的研究可能忽略了这种复杂双向互动中的重要生物学和/或环境因素，因为这些研究通常只关注二元关系中的一方。在实验啮齿动物中，幼崽取回测试（PRT）是评估母性照料行为的主要方法。本研究介绍了一种新型的自动化PRT方法——双向自动化母婴行为互动测试（BAMBI），该方法基于对母性行为的同步视频记录和幼崽叫声的音频记录，能够评估母婴之间的双向二元互动。我们成功地对出生后第5、7、9、11和13天来自29只母鼠的156只幼崽的取回行为和叫声参数进行了准确估计。此外，我们还发现发出的超声波发声（USV）数量与取回成功率之间存在关联，这表明了二元互动的相互依存性和双向性。BAMBI是一种很有前景的新型自动化笼内行为学方法，可应用于基础研究和临床前研究，以探究与早期社会发展相关的复杂表型。
