Artificial rearing of rat pups using rat milk

The contribution of diet and surgery to the brain weight deficits observed in artificially reared rats was investigated. Four day old Long Evans rat pups were assigned to an artificially reared (AR) or mother reared (MR) group. AR pups were encannulated and fed either rat milk (AR-MOM) or replacement formula (AR-MES). MR pups received a sham encannulation (MR-SHAM) or no surgery (MR-CONT) before being returned to their dam for rearing. On day 7 all the animals were killed. Brain weights and visceral organ weights were obtained. There was no significant difference between the MR groups on any measure except stomach weights. AR-MOM pups had larger visceral organ weights than pups in the other groups. AR-MOM and AR-MES pups had similar whole brain weights, smaller than those of the MR pups. However, the cerebellar weights, and to a lesser extent, brainstem weights, showed improvements in the AR-MOM group, over the AR-MES group. Neither the effect of surgery nor of diet alone can account for the organ weight differences that have been described in AR rats. The possibility that normal growth may be primarily dependent on diet at one stage of development, with other factors gaining importance at later stages is discussed.