Maternal behavior: a determinant of amphetamine toxicity in rats.

At 130 days of age, 31 female rats that had been subjected in infancy to handling, mother-separation, both, or neither, were injected with d-amphetamine (100 mg/kg, 50 mg/ml, i.p.). The subjects form handled, mother-present litters were the only group that showed increased latency to death. This finding indicated that the maternal behavior elicited by early handling, rather than early handling or maternal presence alone, resulted in reduced amphetamine toxicity in the offspring, tested in adulthood.