Intake of different hays with presence of Colchicum autumnale by rabbits

[EN] The ingestion of 3 hay types by growing rabbits and the consequences on animal performance were studied in a first part. Two kinds of hay from high nature value grasslands [CFP (Colchico-Festucetum pratensis) and SBR (Senecioni-Brometum racemosi)] differentiated by their botanical composition were compared to a classical agricultural hay (control). The 3 hays, offered ad libitum, were ingested at 30.6, 34.8 and 36.1 g/kg body weight (BW) respectively for SBR, CFP and the control, where the consumption of SBR hay was significantly lower. (P<0.01). The type of hay distributed did not affect the consumption of commercial feed or growth (44 g/kg BW and 36 g/d, respectively). The effect of meadow saffron concentration (Colchicum autumnale) in CFP hay was tested at 3 doses (absence, 2.75 and 15% of the distributed hay mass) with respect to their effect on ingestion and animal health. Again, no effect of the presence of meadow saffron (MeS) in the hay on these parameters was observed, even at the highest dose. However, during this second part, rabbits preferred to consume meadow saffron instead of the rest of the distributed hay (hardly any MeS was refused by rabbits at the representative dose, whereas 12% of the rest of the hay was refused, and 3.4 and 20% respectively at the maximal dose). The intake of the toxic alkaloid colchicine corresponded to 30 to 44% of the median lethal doses (LD50) at the representative and maximal doses respectively. The real exposure of the rabbits was probably lower, as the absorption of ingested colchicine is reported to be around 50% of the LD50 values which are established after an intravenous injection. Nevertheless, the absence of any effect should be interpreted with caution. The colchicine content of MeS varied greatly depending on the time of harvest and the parts of the plant taken into consideration. A late harvest (mid-June or later) would ensure (very) low concentrations of colchicine in the aerial parts of MeS. The presence of cloves on this plant should be completely avoided, due to the very high concentration of colchicine in the seeds. Moreover, long term exposure of the animals to this toxic plant may increase the risk of adverse effects. The study shows that hay distribution can aid digestion without altering the animal’s performance. Moreover, the valorisation of hay from high nature value grasslands would not only add real value to the commercialisation of rabbit meat by commercial breeders, but also to pet owners on the condition that hay quality would be guaranteed.The authors thank PNRL for providing the studied hay types and the specialization staff of ENSAIA for their technical support. Furthermore, we warmly thank Thierry Gidenne from INRA Toulouse and Sylvain Plantureux from INRA Nancy for their scientific coaching for rabbit and grassland sciences, respectivelyEve, T.; Nief, L.; Gonçalves, S.; Fontfreyde, C.; Jurjanz, S. (2017). Intake of different hays with presence of Colchicum autumnale by rabbits. World Rabbit Science. 25(1):51-62. doi:10.4995/wrs.2017.6486.SWORD516225

Visual Personal Familiarity in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

BACKGROUND: Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment are at high risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Besides episodic memory dysfunction they show deficits in accessing contextual knowledge that further specifies a general concept or helps to identify an object or a person. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the neural networks associated with the perception of personal familiar faces and places in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and healthy control subjects. Irrespective of stimulus type, patients compared to control subjects showed lower activity in right prefrontal brain regions when perceiving personally familiar versus unfamiliar faces and places. Both groups did not show different neural activity when perceiving faces or places irrespective of familiarity. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our data highlight changes in a frontal cortical network associated with knowledge-based personal familiarity among patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment. These changes could contribute to deficits in social cognition and may reduce the patients' ability to transition from basic to complex situations and tasks

Age and the Neural Network of Personal Familiarity

BACKGROUND: Accessing information that defines personally familiar context in real-world situations is essential for the social interactions and the independent functioning of an individual. Personal familiarity is associated with the availability of semantic and episodic information as well as the emotional meaningfulness surrounding a stimulus. These features are known to be associated with neural activity in distinct brain regions across different stimulus conditions (e.g., when perceiving faces, voices, places, objects), which may reflect a shared neural basis. Although perceiving context-rich personal familiarity may appear unchanged in aging on the behavioral level, it has not yet been studied whether this can be supported by neuroimaging data. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural network associated with personal familiarity during the perception of personally familiar faces and places. Twelve young and twelve elderly cognitively healthy subjects participated in the study. Both age groups showed a similar activation pattern underlying personal familiarity, predominantly in anterior cingulate and posterior cingulate cortices, irrespective of the stimulus type. The young subjects, but not the elderly subjects demonstrated an additional anterior cingulate deactivation when perceiving unfamiliar stimuli. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Although we found evidence for an age-dependent reduction in frontal cortical deactivation, our data show that there is a stimulus-independent neural network associated with personal familiarity of faces and places, which is less susceptible to aging-related changes

Dementia quality of life instrument - construct and concurrent validity in patients with mild to moderate dementia

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To translate the Dementia quality of life instrument (DQoL) into German and assess its construct and concurrent validity in community-dwelling people with mild to moderate dementia. METHODS: Dementia quality of life instrument data of two pooled samples (n=287) were analysed regarding ceiling and floor effects, internal consistency, factor reliability and correlations with corresponding scales on quality of life (Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease and SF-12), cognition (Mini-Mental State Examination, Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale - cognitive), depression (Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia) and activities of daily living (Interview of Deterioration in Daily Living Activities in Dementia). RESULTS: We found no floor effects (<2%), minor ceiling effects (1-11%), moderate to good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.6-0.8) and factor reliability (0.6-0.8), moderate correlations with self-rated scales of quality of life (Spearman coefficient: 0.3-0.6) and no or minor correlations with scores for cognition, depression or activities of daily living (r<0.3). The original five-factor model could not be confirmed. CONCLUSION: The DQoL can be used in dementia research for assessing positive and negative affect, feelings of belonging and self-esteem. The findings suggest further research to improve the structure of the scales aesthetics, feelings of belonging and self-esteem