Fear and exploration in European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris): a comparison of hand-reared and wild-caught birds

The revision of EU legislation will ban the use of wild-caught animals in scientific procedures. This change is partially predicated on the assumption that captive-rearing produces animals with reduced fearfulness. Previously, we have shown that hand-reared starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) indeed exhibit reduced fear of humans compared to wild-caught conspecifics. Here, we asked whether this reduction in fear in hand-reared birds is limited to fear of humans or extends more generally to fear of novel environments and novel objects. Comparing 6-8 month old birds hand-reared in the lab with age-matched birds caught from the wild as fledged juveniles a minimum of 1 month previously, we examined the birds' initial reactions in a novel environment (a small cage) and found that wild-caught starlings were faster to initiate movement compared to the hand-reared birds. We interpret this difference as evidence for greater escape motivation in the wild-caught birds. In contrast, we found no differences between hand-reared and wild-caught birds when tested in novel object tests assumed to measure neophobia and exploratory behaviour. Moreover, we found no correlations between individual bird's responses in the different tests, supporting the idea that these measure different traits (e.g. fear and exploration). In summary, our data show that developmental origin affects one measure of response to novelty in young starlings, indicative of a difference in either fear or coping style in a stressful situation. Our data contribute to a growing literature demonstrating effects of early-life experience on later behaviour in a range of species. However, since we did not find consistent evidence for reduced fearfulness in hand-reared birds, we remain agnostic about the welfare benefits of hand-rearing as a method for sourcing wild birds for behavioural and physiological research.     

Hand-rearing reduces fear of humans in European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris

Pending changes in European legislation ban the use of wild-caught animals in research. This change is partly justified on the assumption that captive-breeding (or hand-rearing) increases welfare of captive animals because these practices result in animals with reduced fear of humans. However, there are few actual data on the long-term behavioural effects of captive-breeding in non-domestic species, and these are urgently needed in order to understand the welfare and scientific consequences of adopting this practice. We compared the response of hand-reared and wild-caught starlings to the presence of a human in the laboratory. During human presence, all birds increased their general locomotor activity but the wild-caught birds moved away from the human and were less active than the hand-reared birds. After the human departed, the wild-caught birds were slower to decrease their activity back towards baseline levels, and showed a dramatic increase in time at the periphery of the cage compared with the hand-reared birds. We interpret these data as showing evidence of a greater fear response in wild-caught birds with initial withdrawal followed by a subsequent rebound of prolonged attempts to escape the cage. We found no effects of environmental enrichment. However, birds in cages on low shelves were less active than birds on upper shelves, and showed a greater increase in the time spent at the periphery of their cages after the human departed, perhaps indicating that the lower cages were more stressful. In demonstrating reduced fear of humans in hand-reared birds, our results support one of the proposed welfare benefits of this practice, but without further data on the possible welfare costs of hand-rearing, it is not yet possible to reach a general conclusion about its net welfare impact. However, our results confirm a clear scientific impact of both hand-rearing and cage position at the behavioural level.     

Training of attention functions in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Pharmacological treatment of children with ADHD has been shown to be successful; however, medication may not normalize attention functions. The present study was based on a neuropsychological model of attention and assessed the effect of an attention training program on attentional functioning of children with ADHD. Thirty-two children with ADHD and 16 healthy children participated in the study. Children with ADHD were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions, i.e., an attention training program which trained aspects of vigilance, selective attention and divided attention, or a visual perception training which trained perceptual skills, such as perception of figure and ground, form constancy and position in space. The training programs were applied in individual sessions, twice a week, for a period of four consecutive weeks. Healthy children did not receive any training. Alertness, vigilance, selective attention, divided attention, and flexibility were examined prior to and following the interventions. Children with ADHD were assessed and trained while on ADHD medications. Data analysis revealed that the attention training used in the present study led to significant improvements of various aspects of attention, including vigilance, divided attention, and flexibility, while the visual perception training had no specific effects. The findings indicate that attention training programs have the potential to facilitate attentional functioning in children with ADHD treated with ADHD drugs.     

Remodeling of calcium handling in skeletal muscle through PGC-1α: impact on force, fatigability, and fiber type

Regular endurance exercise remodels skeletal muscle, largely through the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α). PGC-1α promotes fiber type switching and resistance to fatigue. Intracellular calcium levels might play a role in both adaptive phenomena, yet a role for PGC-1α in the adaptation of calcium handling in skeletal muscle remains unknown. Using mice with transgenic overexpression of PGC-1α, we now investigated the effect of PGC-1α on calcium handling in skeletal muscle. We demonstrate that PGC-1α induces a quantitative reduction in calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum by diminishing the expression of calcium-releasing molecules. Concomitantly, maximal muscle force is reduced in vivo and ex vivo. In addition, PGC-1α overexpression delays calcium clearance from the myoplasm by interfering with multiple mechanisms involved in calcium removal, leading to higher myoplasmic calcium levels following contraction. During prolonged muscle activity, the delayed calcium clearance might facilitate force production in mice overexpressing PGC-1α. Our results reveal a novel role of PGC-1α in altering the contractile properties of skeletal muscle by modulating calcium handling. Importantly, our findings indicate PGC-1α to be both down- as well as upstream of calcium signaling in this tissue. Overall, our findings suggest that in the adaptation to chronic exercise, PGC-1α reduces maximal force, increases resistance to fatigue, and drives fiber type switching partly through remodeling of calcium transients, in addition to promoting slow-type myofibrillar protein expression and adequate energy supply.     

Visualization of inflammation using (19) F-magnetic resonance imaging and perfluorocarbons

Inflammation plays a central pathophysiological role in a large number of diseases. While conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can depict gross tissue alterations due to proton changes, specific visualization of inflammation is an unmet task in clinical medicine. (19) F/(1) H MRI is a novel technology that allows tracking of stem and immune cells in experimental disease models after labelling with perfluorocarbon (PFC) emulsions. (19) F markers such as PFC compounds provide a unique signal in vivo due to the negligible (19) F background signal of the body. Concomitant acquisition of (1) H images places the labelled cells into their anatomical context. This novel imaging technique has been applied to monitor immune cell responses in myocardial infarction, pneumonia, bacterial abscess formation, peripheral nerve injury, and rejection of donor organs after transplantation. Upon systemic application PFC nanoparticles are preferentially phagozytosed by circulating monocytes/macrophages and, thus, the fluorine signal in inflamed organs mainly reflects macrophage infiltration. Moreover, attenuation of the inflammatory response after immunosuppressive or antibiotic treatments could be depicted based on (19) F/(1) H-MRI. Compared to other organ systems (19) F-MRI of neuroinflammation is still challenging, mainly because of lack in sensitivity. In focal cerebral ischemia early application of PFCs revealed ongoing thrombotic vessel occlusion rather than cell migration indicating that timing of contrast agent application is critical. Current restrictions of (19) F/(1) H-MRI in sensitivity may be overcome by improved imaging hardware, imaging sequences and reconstruction techniques, as well as improved label development and cell labelling procedures in the future.     

Oxidative stress‐induced structural changes in the microtubule‐associated flavoenzyme Irc15p from Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The genome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes a canonical lipoamide dehydrogenase (Lpd1p) as part of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex and a highly similar protein termed Irc15p (increased recombination centers 15). In contrast to Lpd1p, Irc15p lacks a pair of redox active cysteine residues required for the reduction of lipoamide and thus it is very unlikely that Irc15p performs a similar dithiol‐disulfide exchange reaction as reported for lipoamide dehydrogenases. We expressed IRC15 in Escherichia coli and purified the produced protein to conduct a detailed biochemical characterization. Here, we show that Irc15p is a dimeric protein with one FAD per protomer. Photoreduction of the protein generates the fully reduced hydroquinone without the occurrence of a flavin semiquinone radical. Similarly, reduction with NADH or NADPH yields the flavin hydroquinone without the occurrence of intermediates as observed for lipoamide dehydrogenase. The redox potential of Irc15p was ?313 ± 1 mV and is thus similar to lipoamide dehydrogenase. Reduced Irc15p is oxidized by several artificial electron acceptors such as potassium ferricyanide, 2,6‐dichlorophenol‐indophenol, 3‐(4,5‐dimethyl‐2‐thiazolyl)‐2,5‐diphenyl‐2H‐tetrazolium bromide, and menadione. However, disulfides such as cystine, glutathione, and lipoamide were unable to react with reduced Irc15p. Limited proteolysis and SAXS‐measurements revealed that the NADH‐dependent formation of hydrogen peroxide caused a substantial structural change in the dimeric protein. Therefore, we hypothesize that Irc15p undergoes a conformational change in the presence of elevated levels of hydrogen peroxide, which is a putative biomarker of oxidative stress. This conformational change may in turn modulate the interaction of Irc15p with other key players involved in regulating microtubule dynamics.     

Peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor γ coactivator 1α regulates mitochondrial calcium homeostasis,sarcoplasmic reticulum stress,and cell death to mitigate skeletal muscle aging

Age‐related impairment of muscle function severely affects the health of an increasing elderly population. While causality and the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood, exercise is an efficient intervention to blunt these aging effects. We thus investigated the role of the peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor γ coactivator 1α (PGC‐1α), a potent regulator of mitochondrial function and exercise adaptation, in skeletal muscle during aging. We demonstrate that PGC‐1α overexpression improves mitochondrial dynamics and calcium buffering in an estrogen‐related receptor α‐dependent manner. Moreover, we show that sarcoplasmic reticulum stress is attenuated by PGC‐1α. As a result, PGC‐1α prevents tubular aggregate formation and cell death pathway activation in old muscle. Similarly, the pro‐apoptotic effects of ceramide and thapsigargin were blunted by PGC‐1α in muscle cells. Accordingly, mice with muscle‐specific gain‐of‐function and loss‐of‐function of PGC‐1α exhibit a delayed and premature aging phenotype, respectively. Together, our data reveal a key protective effect of PGC‐1α on muscle function and overall health span in aging.