Neural activation induced by an odour mixture perceived elementally or configurally by the newborn rabbit

2013

National audience; Perception of odours plays a crucial role in mammals facilitating interindividual communication, food choice and detection of danger, even from early in life (e.g. mother-young communication). However, little is known about the brain processing and perception of odorants in mixtures, which is by far the more common situation in life. To better understand how the brain processes odorants in mixtures, we used the newborn rabbit as a model. Rabbit pups display a clear sucking behaviour in response to the mammary pheromone (MP, the single molecule 2MB2) carried in the milk of lactating rabbit females. The MP also promotes associative conditioning and very rapid acquisition of…