Search results for "Behavioral Neuroscience"

Odorant Metabolism Analysis by an Automated Ex Vivo Headspace Gas-Chromatography Method

2015

International audience; In the olfactory epithelium (OE), odorant metabolizing enzymes have the dual function of volatile component detoxification and active clearance of odorants from the perireceptor environment to respectively maintain the integrity of the tissues and the sensitivity of the detection. Although emphasized by recent studies, this enzymatic mechanism is poorly documented in mammals. Thus, olfactory metabolism has been characterized mainly in vitro and for a limited number of odorants. The automated ex vivo headspace gas-chromatography method that was developed here was validated to account for odorant olfactory metabolism. This method easily permits the measurement of the f…

Chemical Profiles of Integumentary and Glandular Substrates in Australian Sea Lion Pups ( Neophoca cinerea )

2019

International audience; Recognition of individuals or classes of individuals plays an important role in the communication systems of many mammals. The ability of otariid (i.e., fur seal and sea lion) females to locate and identify their offspring in colonies after returning from regular foraging trips is essential to successful pup rearing. It has been shown that olfaction is used to confirm the identity of the pup by the mother when they reunite, yet the processes by which this chemical recognition occurs remain unclear. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, we examined chemical profiles of integumentary and glandular secretions/excretions from pre- and post-molt Australian sea lion …

Hippocampal theta phase-contingent memory retrieval in delay and trace eyeblink conditioning

2017

Hippocampal theta oscillations (3-12Hz) play a prominent role in learning. It has been suggested that encoding and retrieval of memories are supported by different phases of the theta cycle. Our previous study on trace eyeblink conditioning in rabbits suggests that the timing of the conditioned stimulus (CS) in relation to theta phase affects encoding but not retrieval of the memory trace. Here, we directly tested the effects of hippocampal theta phase on memory retrieval in two experiments conducted on adult female New Zealand White rabbits. In Experiment 1, animals were trained in trace eyeblink conditioning followed by extinction, and memory retrieval was tested by presenting the CS at t…

Repeated, Intermittent Social Defeat across the Entire Juvenile Period Resulted in Behavioral, Physiological, Hormonal, Immunological, and Neurochemi…

2016

The developing brain is vulnerable to social defeat during the juvenile period. As complements of human studies, animal models of social defeat provide a straightforward approach to investigating the functional and neurobiological consequences of social defeats. Taking advantage of agonist behavior and social defeat in male golden hamster, a set of 6 experiments was conducted to investigate the consequences at multiple levels in young adulthood resulting from repeated, intermittent social defeats or “social threats” across the entire juvenile period. Male hamsters at postnatal day 28 (P28) were randomly assigned to either the social defeat, “social threat”, or arena control group, and they …

Re-thinking the effects of body size on the study of brain size evolution

2018

Body size correlates with most structural and functional components of an organism’s phenotype – brain size being a prime example of allometric scaling with animal size. Therefore, comparative studies of brain evolution in vertebrates rely on controlling for the scaling effects of body size variation on brain size variation by calculating brain weight/body weight ratios. Differences in the brain size-body size relationship between taxa are usually interpreted as differences in selection acting on the brain or its components, while selection pressures acting on body size, which are among the most prevalent in nature, are rarely acknowledged, leading to conflicting and confusing conclusions. …

How does a newly born mouse get to the nipple? odor substrates eliciting first nipple grasping and sucking responses

2012

It is a mammalian female strategy to emit odor cues and signals that direct their inexperienced newborns to the nipple, and optimize their initial sucking success and, hence, viability. Here, natural odorous substrates that contribute to nipple grasping were investigated in mice, a species that has not been much scrutinized on this topic. The response of pups toward the nipples of lactating females (LF) versus nonlactating females (NLF) were first assessed right after watched birth, before and after the first suckling experience, and at 1 day old, after more extended suckling experience. It appeared that only nipples of LF induced grasping at these early ages, leading to take NLF as the bas…

2019

During speech perception listeners rely on multimodal input and make use of both auditory and visual information. When presented with speech, for example syllables, the differences in brain responses to distinct stimuli are not, however, caused merely by the acoustic or visual features of the stimuli. The congruency of the auditory and visual information and the familiarity of a syllable, that is, whether it appears in the listener’s native language or not, also modulates brain responses. We investigated how the congruency and familiarity of the presented stimuli affect brain responses to audio-visual (AV) speech in 12 adult Finnish native speakers and 12 adult Chinese native speakers. They…

Does mindfulness affect participants’ response to a vocational rehabilitation program?

2016

Objective: The study aims were to investigate whether mindfulness predicts improved work ability after a multifactorial vocational rehabilitation program in Norway and to examine the mediating influence of mindfulness in the relationship between personal health factors and changes in work ability in response to the program. Methods: Seventy-four participants on long-term sick leave completed questionnaires assessing mindfulness, work ability, functional health, psychological functioning, and demographics before and after a 4–6-week multidisciplinary vocational rehabilitation program. In addition to a standard logistic regression analysis, a bias-corrected bootstrapping technique was used to…

What is an indirect speech act?

2019

Abstract The notion of an indirect speech act is at the very heart of cognitive pragmatics, yet, after nearly 50 years of orthodox (Searlean) speech act theory, it remains largely unclear how this notion can be explicated in a proper way. In recent years, two debates about indirect speech acts have stood out. First, a debate about the Searlean idea that indirect speech acts constitute a simultaneous realization of a secondary and a primary act. Second, a debate about the reasons for the use of indirect speech acts, in particular about whether this reason is to be seen in strategic advantages and/or observation of politeness demands. In these debates, the original pragmatic conception of sen…

2020

Mediators of change in online acceptance and commitment therapy for psychological symptoms of parents of children with chronic conditions : An investigation of change processes