Schumacher SK, Moltz H. The maternal pheromone of the rat as an innate stimulus for pre-weanling young.
Physiol Behav 1982;
28:67-71. [PMID:
7079326 DOI:
10.1016/0031-9384(82)90104-4]
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Abstract
We undertook to determine whether previous exposure in the nest is necessary to establish the attractiveness of the maternal pheromone or whether that attractiveness is innately based. In Experiment I we showed that the pheromone is a prepotent stimulus insofar as it is approached in preference to a different but equally familiar odor. Experiment 2 demonstrated that when pups are denied previous exposure to the pheromone they nonetheless approach the pheromone preferentially in a choice test involving a pheromone-emitting and a non-pheromone-emitting female. And finally, in Experiment 3, we again used pups that had been isolated from the pheromone. Here, however, the choice was between a pheromone-emitting female and a female which, while non-pheromone-emitting, carried a thoroughly familiar nest odor. The pups decisively chose the pheromone-emitting female. We conclude that pheromonal attractiveness is innately based and suggest that the pheromone itself may have been selected as a signal during the course of evolution.
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