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Neonatal novelty exposure, dynamics of brain asymmetry, and social recognition memory
Author(s) -
Tang Akaysha C.,
Reeb Bethany C.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.10158
Subject(s) - novelty , psychology , developmental psychology , recognition memory , neuroscience , asymmetry , audiology , cognition , medicine , social psychology , physics , quantum mechanics
Brief and transient early‐life stimulation via neonatal handling and neonatal novelty exposure can lead to differential changes within the right and left brains. In rats, these lateralized changes have been demonstrated behaviorally, neuroanatomically, and neurophysiologically. Recently, we found that neonatal novelty exposure can prolong the duration of social recognition memory from less than 2 hr to at least 24 hr among male rats reared in social isolation and that this enhancement is associated with an initial right‐turn preference in a novel testing cage. In contrast to stable forms of asymmetry, such as handedness, we show that this turning asymmetry is dynamic—decreasing as the animal adjusts to the novel testing environment over a 2‐day period. This change in turning asymmetry was found only among animals that experienced neonatal novelty exposure during the first 3 weeks of their lives. Furthermore, individual differences in short‐term social recognition memory for a conspecific can be predicted by this change in functional asymmetry. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 44: 84–93, 2004.