Participation of the Olfactory Bulb in Circadian Organization during Early Postnatal Life in Rabbits

Experimental evidence indicates that during pre-visual stages of development in mammals, circadian regulation is still not under the control of the light-entrainable hypothalamic pacemaker, raising the possibility that the circadian rhythmicity that occurs during postnatal development is under the control of peripheral oscillators, such as the main olfactory bulb (MOB). We evaluated the outcome of olfactory bulbectomy on the temporal pattern of core body temperature and gross locomotor activity in newborn rabbits. From postnatal day 1 (P1), pups were randomly assigned to one of the following conditions: intact pups (INT), intact pups fed by enteral gavage (INT+ENT), sham operated pups (SHAM), pups with unilateral lesions of the olfactory bulb (OBx-UNI), and pups with bilateral lesions of the olfactory bulb (OBx-BI). At the beginning of the experiment, from P1-8, the animals in all groups were fed at 11:00, from P9-13 the feeding schedule was delayed 6 h (17:00), and finally, from P14-15 the animals were subjected to fasting conditions. The rabbit pups of the INT, INT+ENT, SHAM and OBx-UNI groups exhibited a clear circadian rhythmicity in body temperature and locomotor activity, with a conspicuous anticipatory rise hours prior to the nursing or feeding schedule, which persisted even during fasting conditions. In addition, phase delays in the nursing or feeding schedule induced a clear phase shift in both parameters. In contrast, the OBx-BI group exhibited atypical rhythmicity in both parameters under entrained conditions that altered the anticipatory component, as well as deficient phase control of both rhythms. The present results demonstrate that the expression of circadian rhythmicity at behavioral and physiological levels during early stages of rabbit development largely depends on the integrity of the main olfactory bulb.