Vogt J L, Hennessy M B, Levine S
Dev Psychobiol. 1984 Mar;17(2):151-9. doi: 10.1002/dev.420170206.
Rat mothers whose pups have been removed show greater plasma corticosterone elevations when the pups are shocked and returned in a wire-mesh basket than when only the wire basket is returned. For mothers housed with an adult male or virgin female, this differential adrenocorticoid responsiveness between the shocked-pup and empty-basket conditions was not observed unless the adult partner was removed 18 hr before testing. Nonlactating adults housed with pups and mother for up to 2 weeks exhibited corticoid elevations equivalent to the shocked-pup and empty-basket conditions whether tested with the mother or 18 hr after her removal. These results indicate that the differential pituitary-adrenal responsiveness that female rats show to pup cues during lactation cannot be accounted for by the length of the mother's exposure to pups, and, further, that this relative responsiveness during lactation appears to be largely due to the suppression of adrenocorticoid reactivity to a nonsocial environmental disturbance.
幼崽被拿走的大鼠妈妈，当受到电击的幼崽被放回金属丝网篮时，其血浆皮质酮水平的升高幅度比只放回空篮子时更大。对于与成年雄性或未生育雌性一起饲养的大鼠妈妈来说，除非在测试前18小时将成年伴侣拿走，否则在电击幼崽和空篮子两种情况下，这种肾上腺皮质激素反应差异是观察不到的。与幼崽和妈妈一起饲养长达2周的非哺乳期成年大鼠，无论在妈妈在场时测试还是在妈妈被拿走18小时后测试，其皮质激素水平的升高幅度都与电击幼崽和空篮子的情况相当。这些结果表明，雌性大鼠在哺乳期对幼崽线索所表现出的垂体-肾上腺反应差异，不能用妈妈接触幼崽的时长来解释，而且，哺乳期的这种相对反应性似乎很大程度上是由于肾上腺皮质对非社会性环境干扰的反应性受到了抑制。
