{"id":102,"date":"2012-09-26T18:13:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T18:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/?page_id=102"},"modified":"2017-01-31T21:55:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T21:55:00","slug":"naked-mole-rats","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/research\/naked-mole-rats\/","title":{"rendered":"Naked Mole-Rats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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Naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber<\/em>) are remarkabe rodents that live underground in Africa.\u00a0 They are \u201ceusocial\u201d – living in colonies with a single breeding female, a few male drones, and non-reproductive workers.\u00a0 They have small eyes and ears but a keen sense of touch.\u00a0 Their bodies are covered with small sensory hairs used for orienting in dark tunnels.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Naked mole-rat neocortex is dominated by the somatosensory area (S1).\u00a0 This large map of the contralateral body surface takes up a much greater proportion of the neocortex in mole-rats than is the case for other rodents.\u00a0 The area typically devoted to vision in mammals is occupied by part of the somatosensory map (PDF of Paper<\/a>).<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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“Mole-ratunculus”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

The \u201cmoleratunculus\u201d illustrated to the left shows the proportions of body parts as represented in the mole-rat brain.\u00a0 A surprisingly large area of the somatosensory map is devoted to the front teeth.\u00a0 Mole-rats use their teeth to dig extensive tunnels and for manipulating objects, making the incisors an important sensory structure (drawing by Lana Finch).<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
When a new queen takes over the colony and begins to reproduce, her spinal column lengthens to accommodate an expanded reproductive tract and large litters of young (sometimes 20 or more embryos).\u00a0 X-rays of transitioning queens (right) show that most of this bone growth occurs during pregancies (PDF of Paper<\/a>).<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) are remarkabe rodents that live underground in Africa.\u00a0 They are \u201ceusocial\u201d – living in colonies with a single breeding female, a few male drones, and non-reproductive workers.\u00a0 They have small eyes and ears but a keen … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1040,"featured_media":0,"parent":5,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102\/revisions\/742"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/catanialab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}