Behavioural and neuropharmacological aspects of maternal aggression in rodents

Abstract

Behavioural and pharmacological studies of aggression have often focussed on males, but aggression of females, e.g., that of a lactating female against strange intruders, can be quite impressive. The behavioural aspects of this postpartum aggression in rodents are reviewed as introduction to its use as a female aggression paradigm in psychopharmacology. The effects of alcohol, d-amphetamine, haloperidol, naloxone, scopolamine, and the antidepressants mianserine and imipramine are described as well as those of some serotonergic drugs, like the specific 5-HT1a agonist flesinoxan, the nonspecific 5-HT1 antagonist methysergide, and the specific 5-HT3 antagonists odansetron (GR38032F) and MDL 72222. A remarkable similarity is found in the effects of these drugs on female and male aggression, although some differences occur. Despite obvious differences in temporal and neural organization and in physiological, hormonal, and environmental mechanisms involved in aggression in male and female rodents, the pharmacological evidence points to the similarities of the neural substrates underlying aggressive behaviour in both genders.