Cardiac orienting and habituation to auditory and vibrotactile stimuli in the infant decerebrate rat

Abstract

Phasic changes in heart rate were used to evaluate sensory reactivity and habituation in 5- and 12-day-old normal and decerebrate rats. Twenty-four and forty-eight hours after thalamic transection, temporally paired auditory or vibrotactile stimuli were repeatedly presented in a sensory disparity paradigm. While tone stimuli failed to evoke consistent cardiac change, vibrotactile stimuli produced cardiac decelerations, characteristic of the orienting response, in all subject groups. The magnitude of this response was comparable in both normal and decerebrate subjects at 5 days of age, but demonstrated a more notable increase with age in the normal subjects. Habituation of the cardiac response was apparent in all groups, and was not significantly different in the normal and decerebrate subjects. No consistent responses were apparent in any group to the unexpected omission of the second stimulus of the pair. Results indicate that orienting and habituation processes can persist in the absence of the cerebral hemispheres and support the view that lower levels of the neuraxis are capable of mediating a range of adaptive functions.

Current Emotion Research in Psychophysiology: The Neurobiology of Evaluative Bivalence

“…The primitive approach/withdrawal dispositions characteristic of spinal reflexes are substantially developed and elaborated at the level of the brainstem. Classical demonstrations of the functional capacity of brainstem networks come from studies of experimen tal decerebration, or isolation of the brainstem and spinal cord in animals and from tragic cases of human decerebration (anencephaly and hydranencephaly) resulting from failure of rostral cell migration and development (Berntson & Micco, 1976;Berntson, Tuber, Ronca, & Bachman, 1983;Harris, Kelso, Flatt, Bartness, & Grill, 2006;Ronca, Berntson, & Tuber, 1986;Yates, Jakus, & Miller, 1993). Decerebrate animals show highly organ ized escape, avoidance, and defensive behaviors in response to aversive stimuli as well as approach/ingestive responses to palat able tastes.…”

Sensory stimuli associated with gestation and parturition evoke cardiac and behavioral responses in fetal rats

“…It is not known whether this shift is due to maturation of autonomic control of the heart or to changes in sensory-perceptual processing associated with functional maturation of afferent systems. Nonetheless, cardiac deceleratory ORs to stimulation have been reported in infants and (more recently) fetuses (humans: K. M. Berg & Smith, 1983; W K. Berg & K. M. Berg, 1979;Berntson, Tuber, Ronca, & Bachman, 1983;Graham, Anthony, & Zeigler, 1983;Lecanuet, Granier-Deferre, Cohen, Le Houezec, & Busnel, 1986;rats: Haroutunian & Campbell, 1981, 1982Hayne, Richardson, & Campbell, 1991, 1992Ronca & Alberts, 1990;Ronca, Berntson, & Tuber, 1985;Smotherman etal.,1991).…”

Social Neuroscience and the Modern Synthesis of Social and Biological Levels of Analysis

“…Classical demonstrations of the functional capacity of brainstem networks come from studies of experimental isolation of the brainstem and spinal cord (decerebration) and from tragic cases of human decerebration (Berntson and Micco 1976 ;Tuber et al 1980 ;Berntson et al 1983 ;Ronca et al 1986, Yates et al 1993Harris et al 2006 ). Although acute postsurgical somatomotor rigidity historically obscured the behavioral capacities of the experimental decerebrate, with longer survival times and the resolution of this rigidity, a great deal of organizational capacity is apparent at brainstem levels (Bard and Macht 1958 ;Berntson and Micco 1976 ;Norman et al 1977 ).…”