Resilience and vulnerability are dose-dependently related to neonatal stressors in mice

Macrı̀, Simone; Granstrem, Oleg; Shumilina, Maria; Santos, Fernando J.; Berry, Alessandra; Saso, Luciano; Laviola, Giovanni

doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.07.006

Cited by 59 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Puppies had improved cardiovascular function (HR), stronger heart beats, stronger adrenal gland function, greater tolerance to stress, and greater resistance to disease (Battaglia, 2009). Mild stressors applied in early life have been reported to promote resilience (Macrì andWürbel, 2006, 2007;Macri et al, 2009;. Providing pregnant mothers and neonatal puppies with a stimulating but not overtly fear-inducing environment may promote resilience in puppies.…”

Section: Early-life Environments Prenatal and Postnatal Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Rooney

Clark

Casey

2016

Journal of Veterinary Behavior

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The causes of fear and anxiety in working dogs are multifactorial and may include inherited characteristics that differ between individuals (e.g. Goddard and Beilharz, 1982; 1984a,b), influences of the environment (Lefebvre et al., 2007), and learned experiences during particular sensitive periods (Appleby et al., 2002) and throughout life. Fear-related behavior compromises performance, leads to significant numbers of dogs failing to complete training (e.g., Murphy, 1995;Batt et al., 2008), early withdrawals from working roles (Caron-Lormier et al., 2016), and can jeopardize dog and handler safety. Hence, amelioration of fear and anxiety is critical to maintain dogs in working roles and to ensure their well-being. Although current methods of selection and training are seemingly effective at producing many dogs which work in a remarkable array of environments, some dogs do not make the grade, and longevity of service is not always maximized. Programs should strive for optimal efficiency and they need to continually analyze the value of each component of their program, seek evidence for its value and explore potential evidence-based improvements. Here we discuss scientific evidence for methods and strategies which may be of value in reducing the risk of fear behaviors developing in the working dog population and suggest potentially valuable techniques and future research to explore the benefit of these approaches. The importance of environmental influences, learning opportunities, and effects of underlying temperament on the outward expression of fear and anxiety should not be underestimated. Identification of characteristics which predict resilience to stress are valuable, both to enable careful breeding for these traits and to develop predictive tests for puppies and procured animals. It is vitally important to rear animals in optimal environments and introduce them to a range of stimuli in a positive, controlled, and gradual way, as these can all help minimize the number of dogs which develop workinhibiting fears. Future research should explore innovative methods to best measure the relative resilience of dogs to stressful events. This could include developing optimal exposure protocols to minimize the development of fear and anxiety, and exploring the influence of social learning and the most effective elements of stimulus presentation.

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Section: Early-life Environments Prenatal and Postnatal Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Rooney

Clark

Casey

2016

Journal of Veterinary Behavior

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“…We addressed this issue pharmacologically mimicking the every other day elevation of blood corticosterone caused by our protocol of FR. We treated a group of rats with a low dose of corticosterone in drinking water on alternate days for 4 weeks, as previously reported in rodents [26][27][28] , and we tested visual cortex plasticity evaluating the effects of 1 week of MD on OD distribution of cortical neurons. We found a significant shift of C/I VEP ratio in favour of the open eye in the visual cortex of MD rats treated with corticosterone (C/I VEP ratio = 1.22 ± 0.07; n = 5; one-way ANOVA P < 0.001; post hoc HolmSidak test CTL versus FR P < 0.001; CTL versus Cort P < 0.001; Cort versus FR P = 0.826; Fig.…”

Section: Corticosterone Mimics Fr Effects On Visual Cortex Plasticitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Food restriction enhances visual cortex plasticity in adulthood

Spolidoro¹,

Baroncelli²,

Putignano

et al. 2011

Nat Commun

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neural circuits display a heightened sensitivity to external stimuli during well-established windows in early postnatal life. After the end of these critical periods, brain plasticity dramatically wanes. The visual system is one of the paradigmatic models for studying experiencedependent plasticity. Here we show that food restriction can be used as a strategy to restore plasticity in the adult visual cortex of rats. A short period of food restriction in adulthood is able both to reinstate ocular dominance plasticity and promote recovery from amblyopia. These effects are accompanied by a reduction of intracortical inhibition without modulation of brainderived neurotrophic factor expression or extracellular matrix structure. our results suggest that food restriction could be investigated as a potential way of modulating plasticity.

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“…We adopted the attentional set-shifting task, originally developed by Birrell and Brown (2000) and modified by Colacicco et al (2002) (see also Macri et al, 2009).…”

Section: Attentional Set-shifting Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perseverative responding and neuroanatomical alterations in adult heterozygous reeler mice are mitigated by neonatal estrogen administration

Macrı̀

Biamonte

Romano

et al. 2010

Psychoneuroendocrinology

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Summary According to the ''extreme-male brain'' theory, elevated fetal testosterone levels may partly explain the skewed sex ratio found in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Correcting this testosterone imbalance by increasing estrogen levels may mitigate the abnormal phenotype. Accordingly, while control heterozygous reeler (rl/+) male mice -a putative model of neuroanatomical and behavioral endophenotypes in ASD -show a decreased number of Purkinje cells (PC) compared to control wild-type (+/+) littermates, neonatal estradiol administration has been shown to correct this deficit in the short-term (i.e. on postnatal day 15). Here, we further investigated the neuroanatomical and behavioral abnormalities of rl/+ male mice and the potential compensatory effects of neonatal treatment with estradiol. In a longitudinal study, we observed that: i) infant rl/+ mice showed reduced motivation for social stimuli; ii) adult rl/+ male mice showed reduced cognitive flexibility; iii) the number of amygdalar parvalbuminpositive GABAergic interneurons were remarkably reduced in rl/+ mice; iv) neonatal estradiol administration into the cisterna magna reverted the abnormal profile both at the behavioral and at the neuroanatomical level in the amygdala but did not compensate for the cerebellar abnormalities in adulthood. This study supports the view that an increased excitation-toinhibition ratio in the cerebellum and in the amygdala during a critical window of development could be crucial to the social and cognitive phenotype of male rl/+ mice, and that acute estradiol treatment during this critical window may mitigate symptoms' severity. #

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Resilience and vulnerability are dose-dependently related to neonatal stressors in mice

Cited by 59 publications

References 57 publications

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Minimizing fear and anxiety in working dogs: A review

Food restriction enhances visual cortex plasticity in adulthood

Perseverative responding and neuroanatomical alterations in adult heterozygous reeler mice are mitigated by neonatal estrogen administration

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