Pubertal decline in maternal responsiveness in Long-Evans rats: Maturational influences

Are age and sex differences in brain oxytocin receptors related to maternal and infanticidal behavior in naïve mice?

“…In the case of young females and males, the literature suggested that they showed lower incidence of maternal or infanticidal behavior respectively (Gandelman, 1973a,b;McCarthy and vom Saal, 1986;Noirot, 1972). However, in contrast to rats and prairie voles (Brunelli and Hofer, 1990;Mayer and Rosenblatt, 1979;Olazábal and Morrell, 2005;Olazábal and Young, 2006a;Stern, 1987), the ontogeny of parental and infanticidal behavior in CB57BL/6 mice had not been investigated in detail.…”

Variability in “spontaneous” maternal behavior is associated with anxiety-like behavior and affiliation in Naïve juvenile and adult female prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster)

“…In contrast, most juvenile prairie voles ($20 days) display parental behavior (i.e., licking, grooming, and crouching postures) ''spontaneously'' on the first exposure to pups (Roberts, Miller, Taymans, & Carter, 1998a;Solomon, 1991;Wang & Novak, 1994). As shown in other rodent species (Mayer & Rosenblatt, 1979;Stern, 1987), female prairie voles appear to undergo a decline in their maternal response from weaning to adulthood (Lonstein & DeVries, 2000b. However, the quality of this behavioral change is still unclear.…”

Cocaine disrupts pup-induced maternal behavior in juvenile and adult rats

“…Pup-induced maternal behavior, historically called pup sensitization or concaveation [29,40,45] is a procedure where both virgin female and male rats may be induced to express parental behavior towards newborn pups through continuous exposure over a period of time. Following multi-day exposure to young (1-5 days old) pups, male and virgin female rats have been shown to exhibit maternal behavior, including licking, touching, retrieval, nestbuilding, and sometimes in older rats, standing over or lying on pups in a semi-nursing posture [9,40,42,45,46].…”

“…Following multi-day exposure to young (1-5 days old) pups, male and virgin female rats have been shown to exhibit maternal behavior, including licking, touching, retrieval, nestbuilding, and sometimes in older rats, standing over or lying on pups in a semi-nursing posture [9,40,42,45,46]. These studies have provided interesting clues concerning possible mechanisms underlying specific aspects of maternal behavior and possible links to performance in general social interaction situations.…”

“…Though the intact medial preoptic area (MPOA) is essential for postpartum and pup-induced maternal behavior in adult rats [13,41,43], large lesions of the MPOA in adolescents impair retrieval and nest-building behaviors only, rather than all elements of maternal behavior and gender does not seem to play as important a role [24]. Whereas adult females typically exhibit pup-induced maternal behavior faster than adult males, the reverse is true in juveniles, with males typically taking fewer days to exhibit pup-induced maternal behavior compared to females and juveniles of both sexes generally perform it several days faster than adults [2][3][4]14,23,30,45,54].…”