DOES FETAL AND NEONATAL EXPOSURE TO ODOUR VARIETY AFFECT LATER RESPONSE TO NOVELTY IN MICE?

Vertebrate embryos and neonates are competent to encode odor information, and to later use it in guiding neonatal, juvenile, and, sometimes, adult behaviour. These data generally derive from experiments in which single odorants were administered. Here, we consider whether the perinatal exposure to multiple odorants administered sequentially will affect later behaviour. Mouse perinates were exposed to contrasted chemosensory regimen through the mother's ingestion of odorized water from days E15 through P21. The effects of 3 treatments were considered: 1/ olfactory monotony (MON; females accessing a benzaldehyde solution 5 days/week; n=46); 2/ olfactory variety (VAR; females accessing each ot…