Strain and age but not maternal feeding of n-3 fatty acids affect the performance of laying hen offspring in a series of associative learning tasks
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Commercial poultry are typically fed diets with fatty acid compositions that differ considerably from wild-type diets in the omega-6 to omega-3 FA ratio (n-6: n-3). Maternal dietary n-3 FA have been shown to affect offspring brain development and cognition in various avian and mammalian species. This study explored the effects of feeding egg-type layer breeders with flaxseed on the performance of their female offspring in a three-stage discrimination task. Shaver White and ISA Brown breeders were fed either a control diet (n-6: n-3 = 14.7:1) or a flaxseed-enriched diet (n-6: n-3 = 5.3:1) throughout the rearing and laying phases. At 30 and 36 weeks of age, eggs were collected, incubated and hatched. Offspring were housed in enriched floor pens and received a control diet. At 12 (pullets) and 33 (hens) weeks of age, three learning tasks were conducted: behavioural shaping (N=437), discrimination test (N=350), and reversal learning (N=213). Food rewards (sweetcorn and raisins) were placed in the “reward” cup. Behavioural shaping consisted of five phases (P): P1 clear cup, P2 coloured cup, P3 coloured cup half-covered with a lid, P4 coloured cup three quarter covered with a lid, and P5 coloured cup covered with a lid. One cup, alternating between blue and green, was presented. Chickens had to eat the food reward from the cup in 4/5 trials to pass each phase. Two cups (green and blue) were presented during discrimination testing and reversal learning with food only in the predetermined “reward” cup. Learning criterion was choosing the correct cup in 4/5 trials for three consecutive days in discrimination testing and for two consecutive days in reversal learning. Data were analysed using survival class analyses. The hazard ratio (HR), 95% confidence intervals (CI) [LL, UL] and p-values to determine the probability of reaching learning criteria are reported. In P1 of behavioural shaping, Brown hens were likelier to reach criteria (HR=2.28, 95% CI [1.48, 3.55], p<0.001). For overall success in behavioural shaping (P1-5), hens were likelier to reach criteria than pullets (HR=2.42, 95% CI [1.50, 3.91], p<0.001). White chickens were likelier to reach criteria in the discrimination test than Brown chickens (HR=1.03, 95% CI [1.01, 1.75], p=0.04). Finally, pullets were likelier to reach criteria in reversal learning than hens (HR=0.44, 95% CI [0.23, 0.86], p=0.016). These results show that age, strain, and their interaction, but not maternal n-3 FA diet, affected the success of chickens in learning tasks.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".