Studies of undernutrition in the young rat: Methodological considerations

✍ Scribed by S. Michael Plaut

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1970
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 609 KB
• Volume: 3
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0012-1630
• DOI: 10.1002/dev.420030303

✦ Synopsis

Three techniques are generally described as creating a state of undernutrition in the young rat: large litter size, periodic mother-litter separation, and early weaning. Evidence from studies of maternal behavior and early experience suggests that many of the effects seen in "nutritional deprivation" experiments may be due, in part, to the social, thermal and sensory deprivation coincident with maternal deprivation, or t o other factors (such as handling) which are often confounded with maternal deprivation. These other variables must be systematically accounted for before assumptions can be made about the effects of undernutrition per se. development early experience early weaning litter size undernutrition maternal behavior maternal deprivation laboratory rat