The untapped potential of opportunistic neuroscience models (Invited commentary on “Evaluating the stress system of the grieving brain: corticotropin-releasing factor receptors and partner loss in coyotes (Canis latrans))

Abstract

In this invited Commentary on Tong and Freeman’s article on CRFRs in widowed coyotes (this issue), I commend the authors for the rigorous use of opportunistically obtained brains to extend our knowledge of the grieving brain. Current laboratory models in neuroscience are productive, but often limited. This is perhaps nowhere so true as in efforts to study developmental neurobiological processes longitudinally in longer-lived animals. Although molecular mechanisms for many processes are comparable across species, brain organization and other aspects of systems neuroscience can be time-course dependent. I provide an example drawn from environmental toxicology—studying the effects of developmental excitotoxins in marine mammals, which produce highly precocial young after very long gestations.