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D2 antagonist during development decreases anxiety and infanticidal behavior in adult female prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster)

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Abstract

On postnatal day 8, prairie vole pups were randomly assigned a treatment of 1 mg/kg SKF38393 (D1 agonist), quinpirole (D2 agonist), SCH23390 (D1 antagonist), eticlopride (D2 antagonist), or saline vehicle. As adults, females treated with eticlopride exhibited reduced anxiety-like behavior in an elevated plus maze and a reduction in infanticidal behavior. These behavioral effects were not seen in males. These data demonstrate that a single exposure to a D2 antagonist during development can have persistent, sex-specific effects on behavior into adulthood.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Julie Van Westerhuyzen and Cindy Clayton for their help on this project. This work was funded by the McNair Scholar Program and Sigma Xi (to S.L.H.) and grants NSF 0437523 and NIMH 073022 (to K.L.B.).

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