Bilateral lesions of the bed nucleus of the accessory olfactory tract facilitate maternal behavior in virgin female rats

Abstract

In this study the effects of electrolytic lesions of the bed nucleus of the accessory olfactory tract (BAOT) on the induction of maternal behavior in virgin female Wistar rats was investigated. Results demonstrate a functional role of the BAOT in the neural control of maternal behavior in virgin female rats since bilaterally BAOT lesioned (BL) animals showed significantly shorter sensitization latencies (BL = 6 days) than sham lesioned (SH = 12 days) and intact control (C = 12 days) female rats. At the same time, statistically significant differences were observed in retrieval latency between BL (5.5 days) and C (10 days) groups, but not in the SH group (8 days). In physical contact frequency, the BL group reached higher scores than SH or C group. However, bilateral BAOT lesions failed to affect other maternal patterns such as nest building quality. Thus these results indicate that the BAOT, a vomeronasal system structure, is involved in the control of maternal behavior and that BL electrolytic lesions facilitate the onset of this behavior in virgin female Wistar rats.