Behavioral effects of long-term administration of an anabolic steroid in intact and castrated male Wistar rats

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Once a week, intact and castrated male Wistar rats were intramuscularly injected with a 0.2 ml suspension of either 0, 10, or 50 mg nandrolone decanoate in cottonseed oil, for 8 consecutive weeks. After the sixth injection, locomotor activity was measured in an open-field and the acquisition of lever press behavior was assessed in an autoshaping procedure. Subsequently, all subjects were exposed to four sessions of continuous reinforcement prior to one session in which the effects of steroid administration on extinction were assessed. Locomotor activity decreased for all groups of rats with continued exposure to the open-field, differences between groups were not observed. Rats treated with the highest dose of nandrolone decanoate spent more time in the margin of the open-field. There were no significant differences between groups on any of the learning measures. Long-term, high-dose steroid administration in conjunction with mild food deprivation inhibited growth in intact and castrated rats, while low dose administration affected body weight in intact rats only. Steroid administration resulted in heavier and enlarge kidneys and lighter testes as well. These results suggest that the administration of anabolic steroids not only produces observable physiological changes, but that it may also affect spontaneous behavior. The failure to find differences in learning indices may have been a function of the particular paradigms used in the present experiment.