The effects of sensitization and social isolation on maternal behavior in the virgin rat

Abstract

Thirty-three out of 67 virgin Sprague-Dawley rats spontaneously retrieved 5–10-day-old foster pups in a pretest. The 34 rats not responding immediately were randomly divided into three groups to study the effects of direct and exteroceptive exposure to young on the induction of maternal behavior. Retrieving, licking and crouching behavior appeared in a higher proportion of cage rats (n = 12) which received a fresh group of pups to live with throughout each day than in control rats (n = 10) that had only 5 min daily exposure. However basket rats (n = 12) also became maternal merely by exposure to exteroceptive stimuli from pups living in baskets fixed to the cage wall. In a second experiment, virgin rats that spontaneously retrieved pups were socially isolated for 2–4 weeks. As a result, a 50–60% decrease in the number of rats showing retrieval was found not only in an independent sample of rats (n = 20) but also in a related group (n = 13) that practiced the response in the week between a pretest and Week 2 in isolation. Therefore, the results demonstrate that exteroceptive cues from pups alone may be sufficient to induce maternal behavior in nonspontaneously retrieving virgin rats, and that isolation from pups and other social stimuli reduce retrieving behavior in initially responsive virgin rats.