Elsevier

Hormones and Behavior

Volume 15, Issue 2, June 1981, Pages 197-213
Hormones and Behavior

Neonatal androgens influence the social play of prepubescent rats

https://doi.org/10.1016/0018-506X(81)90028-3Get rights and content

Abstract

The results of six experiments designed to investigate the hormonal basis of the sex differences in the occurrence of social play in the rat are reported. From the time of weaning animals were housed in mixed-sex, peer groups of six, composed of some treated and some untreated animals. Observations were made of the animals in these groups each day between Days 26 and 40 of life in Experiments 1, 3–6 and between Days 31 and 40 in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1 it was found that males castrated on Day 1 of life engaged in less social play than did intact males, and did not differ from normal females. In Experiment 2, castration carried out at 23 days of age had no effects on the frequency with which males engaged in social play. In Experiment 3, it was found that neonatal ovariectomy had no effect on the frequency with which female pups engaged in social play. In Experiment 4, females treated on Days 1 and 2 of life with either 250 μg of testosterone propionate or 250 μg of dihydrotestosterone engaged in social play at rates comparable to those of normal males, whereas treatment with 5 μg of estradiol benzoate had no such effect. In Experiments 5 and 6 it was found that neither the reduction of testosterone-derived estradiol (by implants of the aromatization blocker, androst-1,4,6-triene-3,17-dione) nor that of testosterone-derived dihydrotestosterone (by implants of the 5α-reductase blocker, testosterone 17β-carboxylic acid) during the early neonatal period (Days 1 to 10 of life) changed the frequency of social play in intact males. The results of these experiments indicate that the sex difference in the social play of prepubescent rats is dependent on the neonatal exposure to testosterone or to its 5α-reduced metabolite, dihydrotestosterone. The reduction of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, however, would not appear to be a necessary step.

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