L’épigenèse de l’hédonisme olfactif et gustatif chez l’enfant

National audience

Learning at the breast: Preference formation for an artificial scent and its attraction against the odor of maternal milk

International audience; Human newborns are known to display spontaneous attraction to the odor of human milk. This study aimed to assess whether the positive response to human milk odor can be explained by nursing-related learning, and whether it can be easily reassigned to a novel odor associated with nursing. Infants were exposed or not to a novel odor (camomile, Ca) during nursing, and tested on day 3–4 for their preference for camomile in comparison with either a scentless control (Exp. 1), a scented control (Exp. 2), or maternal milk (Exp. 3). Prior experience with Ca modified the newborns’ responses. While the Ca odor became more attractive than a scented control in the Ca-exposed gro…

Mammary olfactory signalisation in females and odor processing in neonates: ways evolved by rabbits and humans

International audience; Mammalian females have long been known to release olfactory attraction in their offspring. Mammary odor cues control infant state, attention and directional responses, delay distress responses, stimulate breathing and positive oral actions, and finally can boost learning. Here, we survey female-offspring odor communication in two mammalian species - European rabbits and humans - taken as representatives of evolutionary extremes in terms of structure and dynamics of mother-infant relations, and level of neonatal autonomy. Despite these early psychobiological differences, females in both species have evolved mammary structures combining multiple sources of endogenous a…

A thread from amnion to milk to food: flavour continuities over birth and weaning transitions

Olfaction and taste engage oral activity from birth. Odorants and tastants are thus in a good position to modulate the first milk intake responses and the selective acceptance of non-milk foods around weaning. In the perinatal period, the biological fluids – amniotic fluid and milk – that contact the nasal/oral chemosensors carry stimuli which are salient to newborns. Amniotic fluid and milk are at first treated by infants as sensorily/motivationally equivalent, giving credit to the double notion of a chemosensory overlap between perinatal ecologies and of neonatal preparation by foetal experience to attend certain stimuli more than others. Tests of several predictions derived from this hyp…

Lasting Odor Memories Acquired while Sucking on the Mother's Breast