PubMed Health⌕ Search

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Maternal Behavior”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 505 records · Page 28Linked to original sources
PubMed2002

Twenty-four-hour-old lambs rely more on maternal behavior than on the learning of individual characteristics to discriminate between their own and an alien mother.

Lambs can discriminate their own mother from an alien dam on the first day of life, suggesting the recognition of individual physical characteristics of the mother. Alternatively, their choice may depend on behavioral differences existing between the ewes because of their maternal selectivity. To clarify this, the ability of 24-hr-old lambs to discriminate between their own and an alien mother, that were either intact and accept only their own lamb at nursing (i.e., selective, n = 19) or anosmic, which nurse indiscriminately alien lambs as well as their own (i.e., nonselective, n = 24), was assessed by a 5-min, two-choice test. With intact dams, lambs spent significantly more time next to their own mother whereas this was not so in the presence of anosmic dams. Furthermore, in the intact group, the vocal activity by their own mother differed from that by the alien dam while this was not so in anosmic ewes. We conclude that 24-hr-old lambs rely more on the behavior of the ewes to select their dam than on their individual physical characteristics.

Animals↗
PubMed1982

Reversal of morphine disruption of maternal behavior by concurrent treatment with the opiate antagonist naloxone.

Rats whose pregnancies were surgically terminated on day 17 of gestation were injected with morphine, morphine plus naloxone hydrochloride, or saline, and then tested for maternal responsiveness toward foster young. Morphine treatment alone significantly disrupted the rate of onset and quality of maternal responsiveness. Concurrent administration of naloxone to morphine-injected rats reinstated the rapid onset of behavioral responsiveness toward foster young, such that the responsiveness of the rats treated with both morphine and naloxone was indistinguishable from that shown by saline-injected controls. The disruptive effects of morphine did not appear to result from a general reduction in activity levels as measured in an open-field apparatus. These findings suggest that the normal onset and maintenance of maternal behavior in the rat may be regulated by endogenous opiates.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

Maternal behavior of female rats with 6-OHDA lesions in the ventral striatum: characterization of the pup retrieval deficit.

The present experiments characterized the impairment in pup retrieval previously observed in maternal rats following dopamine-depleting 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) infusions in the ventral striatum. Video recordings of 30-min pup retrieval tests revealed that 6-OHDA mothers spent most of the time feeding (Experiment 1). Denying the mothers the opportunity to eat during testing failed to reestablish pup retrieval. Similarly unsuccessful was an attempt to evoke food-motivated pup retrieving in 6-OHDA mothers by coating the stimulus pups' skin with a 4% sucrose solution (Experiment 2). However, restoration of pup retrieval was observed in 6-OHDA mothers that had been separated from their pups for 3-6 h (Experiments 3 and 4). Stimulation of ultrasonic callings by clonidine treatment of the stimulus pups, or leaving pups in the nest during testing, were not significantly effective (Experiment 3). These data suggest that separation-induced increases in maternal motivation can override the inhibitory effect of ventral striatal dopamine depletion on pup retrieval.

Animals↗