Development of behavioral responses to thermal challenges

Abstract

Body temperature regulation involves the development of responses to cold and warm challenges. Matching our understanding of the development of body temperature regulation to warm challenges with that of cold challenges will enhance our understanding of the ontogeny of thermoregulation and reveal different adaptive specializations. Warm and cold thermoregulation are important processes, and they include direct thermal effects on offspring, as well as indirect effects on them, such as those imposed by thermally associated alterations of maternal behavior. The present paper is a selective review of the existing literature and a report of some new empirical data, aimed at processes of mammalian development, especially those affecting behavior. We briefly discuss the development of body temperature regulation in rats and mice, and thermal aspects of maternal behavior with emphasis on responses to high temperatures. The new data extend previous analyses of individual and group responses in developing rodents to warm and cool ambient temperatures. This literature not only reveals a variety of adaptive specializations during development, but it points to the earlier appearance in young mammals of abilities to combat heat loss, relative to protections from hyperthermia. These relative developmental delays in compensatory defenses to heating appear to render young mammals especially vulnerable to environmental warming. We describe cascading consequences of warming—effects that illustrate interactions across levels of physiological, neural, and behavioral development.

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