Perception of odor blending mixtures in the newborn rabbit

Coureaud, Gérard; Thomas‐Danguin, Thierry; Berre, Elodie Le; Schaal, Benoı̂st

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2008.05.018

Cited by 46 publications

(121 citation statements)

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“…Indeed, the complexity of the neonatal olfactory environment is high, and newborns have to extract information from this complexity. However, whether this extraction engages elemental and/or configural capacities has been only weakly addressed to date (Coureaud et al, 2008). In the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), altricial newborns deprived of audition and vision during the first postnatal week, have to process complex chemical mixtures of odorants (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using a mixture of ethyl isobutyrate and ethyl maltol (AB), which releases perceptual blending in humans [i.e. the odour of this mixture is perceived as different from the odours of the components by adult subjects (Le Berre et al, 2008a)], we recently investigated the perception of odour mixtures in the newborns of this species (Coureaud et al, 2008). A pheromone-induced conditioning paradigm allowed to compare how rabbit pups respond to the AB mixture and to its odorants after the learning of the mixture or of one of its constituent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Elemental and configural processing of odour mixtures in the newborn rabbit

Coureaud

Hamdani

Schaal

et al. 2009

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYThe processing of odour mixtures by young organisms is poorly understood. Recently, the perception of an AB mixture, known to engage configural perception in adult humans, was suggested also to be partially configural in newborn rabbits. In particular, pups did not respond to AB after they had learned A or B. However, two alternative hypotheses might be suggested to explain this result: the presence in the mixture of a novel odorant that inhibits the response to the learned stimulus, and the unevenness of the sensory and cognitive processes engaged during the conditioning and the behavioural testing. We conducted four experiments to explore these alternative hypotheses. In experiment 1, the learning of A or B ended in responses to mixtures including a novel odorant (AC or BC). Experiment 2 pointed to the absence of overshadowing. Therefore, a novelty effect cannot explain the non-response to AB after the learning of A or B. In experiment 3, pups having learned A or B in AC or BC did not respond to AB. However, they generalized odour information acquired in AB to AC or BC in experiment 4. Thus, the balancing of the perceptual tasks between the conditioning and retention test does not enhance the response to the AB mixture. To sum up, the present experiments give concrete support to the partially configural perception of specific odour mixtures by newborn rabbits.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elemental and configural processing of odour mixtures in the newborn rabbit

Coureaud

Hamdani

Schaal

et al. 2009

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…The MP also acts as a cognitive organizer promoting the rapid (single trial) appetitive learning of new odor stimuli, initially neutral. After pairing with the MP, the learned stimulus gains significance (i.e., releases the sucking behavior of neonates) in less than 24 h, following rules of first-order conditioning where the MP constitutes the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the novel odorant the conditioned one (CS1) (Coureaud et al , 2008(Coureaud et al , 2009.Consolidation and reconsolidation processes, usually required in long-term memories (McGaugh 1966(McGaugh , 2000Nader et al 2000b;Sara 2000), are also involved in MP-induced odor memory; retention is impaired by injection of a protein synthesis inhibitor (anisomycin), and anisomycin induces amnesia also after reactivation of the previously consolidated memory (Coureaud et al 2009). Nevertheless, properties of learning and memory promoted by the MP remain poorly known.…”

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“…Conditioning and reactivation occurred at 10:30 a.m., one hour before nursing, which happened only daily in this species (Zarrow et al 1965). The behavioral assay consisted of, on day 4, a validated activation test (e.g., Schaal et al 2003;Coureaud et al 2006Coureaud et al , 2008Coureaud et al , 2009) during which the pup was immobilized in one hand of the experimenter, its head being left free, and the test odor was presented for 10 sec with a glassstick 0.5 cm in front of the nares. The response was an on/off response; a test was considered positive when the stimulus elicited specific scanning movements of the head (vigorous, of low amplitude) displayed after stretching toward the stick and followed by labial seizing; nonresponding pups displayed no response except sniffing.…”

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Independence of first- and second-order memories in newborn rabbits

Coureaud¹,

Languille²,

Joly³

et al. 2011

Learn. Mem.

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The mammary pheromone promotes the acquisition of novel odorants (CS1) in newborn rabbits. Here, experiments pinpoint that CS1 becomes able to support neonatal learning of other odorants (CS2). We therefore evaluated whether these first-and second-order memories remained dependent after reactivation. Amnesia induced after CS2 recall selectively blocked this memory, when recall and amnesia of CS1 left the souvenir of CS2 safe; this finding partially differed from results obtained in adult mammals. Thus, in this model of neonatal appetitive odor learning, second-order memory seems to depend on first-order memory for its formation but not for its maintenance.The mammary pheromone (MP) emitted by lactating rabbit females helps newborn rabbits to orient to the mother, then rapidly to localize and grasp the nipples (Coureaud 2001;Schaal et al. 2003). It is a determinant for survival and growth in the context of mother -young interactions daily limited (,5 min) (Zarrow et al. 1965). The MP also acts as a cognitive organizer promoting the rapid (single trial) appetitive learning of new odor stimuli, initially neutral. After pairing with the MP, the learned stimulus gains significance (i.e., releases the sucking behavior of neonates) in less than 24 h, following rules of first-order conditioning where the MP constitutes the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the novel odorant the conditioned one (CS1) (Coureaud et al. , 2008(Coureaud et al. , 2009.Consolidation and reconsolidation processes, usually required in long-term memories (McGaugh 1966(McGaugh , 2000Nader et al. 2000b;Sara 2000), are also involved in MP-induced odor memory; retention is impaired by injection of a protein synthesis inhibitor (anisomycin), and anisomycin induces amnesia also after reactivation of the previously consolidated memory (Coureaud et al. 2009). Nevertheless, properties of learning and memory promoted by the MP remain poorly known. The present experiments aimed to go further, to determine whether secondorder odor learning exists in this model (CS2-CS1 pairing) and to examine whether first-and second-order memories remain dependent in the neonatal brain. To date, Debiec et al. (2006) showed in adult rats that following first-, then second-order conditioning, CS2 memory remains dependent of CS1 memory for its expression in the long-term. Since mechanisms which support learning present specificities in newborns (Wilson and Sullivan 1994; Languille 2010), we suspected that early memories could be less dependent on each other after formation based on chainlike associations.We investigated these early memory processes (n ¼ 115 neonates, from 32 females) and their sensitivity to the action of anisomycin (AN; 42 mg/kg i.p.; Aldrich) after reactivation. Like other authors, using other species-e.g., adults (for review, see Davis and Squire 1984;Desgranges et al. 2008;Merhav and Rosenblum 2008) and newborns (Gruest et al. 2004;Languille et al. 2008Languille et al. , 2009, we defend that the blocking effect of AN on odor memory in newborn rabbits cannot ...

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Developmental changes in elemental and configural perception of odor mixtures in young rabbits

Coureaud

Letagneaux

Thomas‐Danguin

et al. 2019

Developmental Psychobiology

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Development can change the way organisms represent their environment and affect their behavior. In vision, complex stimuli are treated as the sum of their elements (elemental perception) in children or as a whole (configural perception) in adults. However, the influence of development in elemental/configural perception has never been tested in olfaction. Here we explored this issue in young rabbits, which are known to perceive during the neonatal period certain binary odor mixtures elementally and others weak configurally. Using conditioning and behavioral testing procedures, we set out six experiments evaluating the putative evolution of their odor perception between birth and weaning. Results highlighted that between postnatal days 2 and 9 the perception of an initially weak configural mixture became robust configural while that of two elemental mixtures did not. Additional switches from elemental to configural perception were observed at postnatal day 24. The use of a chemically more complex senary mixture resulted also in a shift from weak to robust configural perception between postnatal days 2 and 9. Thus, the perception of certain odor mixtures may rapidly evolve toward a more holistic mode in young rabbits, which may help simplifying their representation of the environment once out of the nest. K E Y W O R D Sbehavior, configural perception, European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), newborn, odor mixture, olfaction, weaning

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Perception of odor blending mixtures in the newborn rabbit

Cited by 46 publications

References 50 publications

Elemental and configural processing of odour mixtures in the newborn rabbit

Elemental and configural processing of odour mixtures in the newborn rabbit

Independence of first- and second-order memories in newborn rabbits

Developmental changes in elemental and configural perception of odor mixtures in young rabbits

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