PSY398H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Sexual Differentiation, Prenatal Development, Molecular Modification
Document Summary
Maternal environment & development of sexually dimorphic behaviors. Variation in maternal care important in the development of sexually differentiated behaviors. Ag licking contributes to sexually dimorphic behaviors such as play behavior (birke & Olf. disruption in the dam leads to less maternal licking and a disruption in the temporal pattern of sexual behavior in male rats (moore, 1984) Male offspring of strains in which the dam spends more time ag licking show more robust. Dopamine response to licking: high-lg mothers show increased da response in the nac compared to low-lg mothers both at the start of the lg bout and at it"s peak. Attention attentional set shifting task: rats were food deprived and trained to dig in ceramic bowls for froot loops, the bowls differed along two dimensions: odor and texture, 7 stages in this task. If animals fail to show improvement over time no memory of location in space . Lesions of the hippocampus cause deficits in spatial learning.
