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2006

Psychology

University of Richmond

Behavior

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A Role For Vasopressin And Oxytocin In Parental Behavior Of The Male Sprague-Dawley Rat, Ekaterina V. Karelina Aug 2006

A Role For Vasopressin And Oxytocin In Parental Behavior Of The Male Sprague-Dawley Rat, Ekaterina V. Karelina

Master's Theses

Paternal behavior, though infrequent in many mammalian species, can be induced under laboratory conditions through manipulation of either hormonal or environmental states. Rodent studies of parental behavior have implicated similarities for males and females in not only the actual behavioral repertoire, but also the brain mechanisms governing the set of behaviors in both sexes. The current project investigated changes in oxytocin and vasopressin in the hypothalamus of paternal male rats. We found that paternal behavior, which was readily induced through sensitization (chronic pup exposure), was significantly correlated with increasing oxytocin and vasopressin immunoreactivity within the paraventricular nucleus. Further, corticosterone levels …


Learned Fear And Reaction To Novel Stimuli: Behavioral And Hormonal Stress Responses In The Maternal Rat, Brandi Nicole Rima Aug 2006

Learned Fear And Reaction To Novel Stimuli: Behavioral And Hormonal Stress Responses In The Maternal Rat, Brandi Nicole Rima

Master's Theses

The present thesis examines the relationship between reproductive experience and the behavioral, neural, and hormonal processes of learned fear in the female rat. Multiple research models indicate that reproductive experience functions to decrease the female's stress response in potentially harmful environments, thus providing her with numerous survival benefits, including decreased fearfulness, increased aggression, and refined hunting skills. Based on existing understandings of maternal experience and unconditioned fear, this study was designed to determine how nulliparous (no reproductive experience, NP), primiparous (one reproductive experience, PP) and multiparous (more than one reproductive experience, MP) rats comparatively respond to a Pavlovian paradigm of …