Attractive and appetitive odor factors in murine milk: Their fade-out time and differential cryo-preservation

Abstract

Murine milk conveys an odor factor that is both attractive and appetitive to conspecific newborns. Up to now, little is known about the temporal dynamic of this odor factor and about the stability of its behavioral activity after milk ejection. We aim to characterize the conditions in which the attractive and appetitive potency of milk to newborns is best conserved and, as a logical outcome, at standardizing conditions in which milk varies in reactogenic potency for newborns. Milk was collected and conserved in two conditions of cold (4 °C, −80 °C) for several durations (3 and 24 h, and 1, 2 and 8 months). The reactogenic potency of milk was assayed in 2 day-old mouse pups. We found that milk remains olfactorily attractive and appetitive to newborns after 3 h of storage at 4 °C, but it completely loses reactogenic potency on newborn pups after 24 h of storage at 4 °C. Storage at −80 °C preserves the behavioral activity of milk up to 1 month, but milk stored for 2 months at this temperature remains appetitive but not attractive to pups. Finally, the reactogenic potency of murine milk in pups is abolished after 8 months of storage at −80 °C. This study highlights that attractive and appetitive factors of milk appear dissociable and, in any case, highly labile. It provides, for two different storage temperatures, a temporal window in which milk remains behaviorally active on pups. These results will allow designing a contrastive chemical approach to identify the reactogenic compounds of milk.