A phenomenon: left-biassed asymmetrical eye-opening in artificially reared rat pups.
From 4 or 5 postnatal days, rat pups were either reared by their mothers (MR) or artificially reared (AR) without their mothers by infusion of 'milk' through a gastric cannula. In AR, but not MR, pups the left eye was more likely to open first than the right eye (P less than 0.001). The left-biassed eye-opening of AR pups may be a manifestation of stress-induced lateralisation of their brains.
D000818:Animals; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D005123:Eye / Q000254:growth & development*; D005260:Female; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D051381:Rats