The effect of postnatal undernutrition on the catecholamine and serotonin contents of various parts of the brain of suckling rats was examined. Undernourishment was induced by increasing the litter size to 18 pups from day 1 to 21 after birth. In control pups, the total amounts of norepinephrine and dopamine in the whole brain increased greatly during the suckling period (norepinephrine: 17.7 n...

Introduction: Gonadotropin inhibitory hormone (GnIH) is believed to be an inhibitor of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) secretion. The role of GnIH in lactational inhibition of gonadotropin secretion is not well known therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of lactation on expression of GnIH in these nuclei of lactating and non-lactating rats. Methods: Ten po...

Pre-reproductive environmental enrichment of female rats influences sensorimotor development and spatial behavior of the offspring, possibly through the changed maternal nurturing. Nevertheless, maternal care could be not the solely responsible for changing offspring developmental trajectories. To disentangle the specific contribution to the transgenerational inheritance of pre- and post-natal ...

The role of the serotonergic innervation of the olfactory bulb was examined in neonate rat pups (Sprague-Dawley) by utilizing an olfactory learning paradigm (Sullivan, McGaugh, & Leon, 1991; Sullivan, Wilson, & Leon, 1989). One hundred fifty nanoliters of the neurotoxin 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine (5,7-dHT, 10 micrograms/microliters) was injected into each anterior olfactory nucleus of Postnatal Da...

In nature and under laboratory conditions, dams nurse rabbit pups once daily for a duration of fewer than 5 min. The present study explored neural mechanisms mediating the timing of nursing in this natural model of food anticipatory activity, focussing on the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the locus of the master circadian clock and on the dorsomedial hypothalamic nucleus (DMH), a region implic...

The study reported here investigated the efficacy of two commonly used modified-live virus vaccines to induce seroconversion against canine parvovirus (CPV) in 213 Rottweiler and Doberman pinscher pups with various titers of maternally derived CPV antibody. Beginning at 6 to 8 weeks of age, pups were given a subcutaneous vaccination every 21 days (range, 18-24 days) in the dorsal region of the ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Germinal matrix hemorrhage-intraventricular hemorrhage (GMH-IVH) is the most common neurological problem of premature infants and has enormous financial and social impact. Despite this, there is no standardized animal model of IVH depicting acute brain injuries. METHODS We delivered rabbit-pups prematurely at 29-day gestation by C-section, administered intraperitoneal g...

The estimation of milk consumption in free-ranging seals using tritium dilution techniques makes the key assumption that the animals drink no pre-formed water during the experimental period. However, frequent observations of unweaned Antarctic fur seal pups drinking water at Iles Kerguelen necessitated the testing of this assumption. We estimated water flux rates of 30 pups (10.7+/-0.3 kg) in f...

Variation in the number, total weight, mean individual weight and minimum individual weight of live pups at first and second litter were studied in hemiovariectomized (H = 54 does) and normal (N = 55 does) rabbit does. The total number of implanted embryos in 25 unoperated (N) and 54 hemiovariectomized (H) does were recorded by laparoscopy on the 12th day of their second pregnancy. The total nu...

Alternative methods of selection to increase litter size in mice have been practiced for 21 generations followed by six generations of relaxed selection. Three replicates were used with four selection criteria: index of components (IX:I = 1.21 x total ovulation rate + 9.05 x ova success), uterine capacity (UT), litter size (LS), and an unselected control (LC). In IX, ovulation rate and ova succ...