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Tactile stimulation prevents disruptions in male rat copulatory behavior induced by artificial rearing

International Journal of Impotence Research volume 35, pages 132–139 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Early life social interactions in gregarious mammals provide an important source of stimulation required for the development of species-typical behaviors. In the present study, complete deprivation of maternal and littermate contact through artificial rearing was used to examine the role of early social stimulation on copulatory behavior and the ejaculate in adult rats. We found that artificially reared naïve male rats were sexually motivated; nevertheless, they did not acquire the level of sexual experience that typically occurs during copulatory training. Disrupted expression of sexual experience of artificially reared rats was demonstrated by an inconsistent pattern of ejaculatory behavior across training tests. Artificial tactile stimulation applied during isolation prevented this disruption and rats achieved ejaculation in most copulatory tests. Despite the irregularity of ejaculatory behavior in isolated rats, their sperm count and seminal plug were similar to control maternally reared (sexually experienced) and artificially-reared rats that received tactile stimulation. These results suggest that tactile sensory information provided by the mother and/or littermates to the offspring is crucial for the development of copulatory behavior. The absence of social and/or tactile stimulation during early life compromises the ability of male rats to gain sexual experience in adulthood.

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Fig. 1: Overview of the experimental protocol.
Fig. 2: Copulatory training tests of MR, AR, and AR-Tactile male rats.
Fig. 3: Graphic representation of the copulatory patterns during sexual training.
Fig. 4: Temporal sequence of copulatory motor patterns.
Fig. 5: Copulatory parameters of male rats with or without the ejaculation pattern.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Angel Azael Melo Baza for preparing the graphical abstract.

Funding

This work was partially supported by CONACYT (grant number 181334) and fellowships (487025/277841 to CAP and 277930 to VRP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Tlaxcala de Biología de la Conducta, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Carretera Tlaxcala-Puebla km 1.5 s/n, Loma Xicoténcatl, CP 90062, Tlaxcala, Tlax, México

    Rosa Angélica Lucio

  2. Doctorado en Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, México

    Carlos Aguilar-Pérez & Verónica Rodríguez-Piedracruz

  3. University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada

    Anna M. Lomanowska

  4. Centro de Investigación en Reproducción Animal, CINVESTAV-Laboratorio Tlaxcala, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Apdo. Postal 6, Tlaxcala, Tlax, 90062, México

    Mayra Flores-Jiménez, Kurt Leroy Hoffman & Angel I. Melo

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  1. Rosa Angélica Lucio
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Contributions

Study concept and design: AIM and RAL. Data analysis and interpretation: KLH, CAP. Manuscript drafting and revision: AIM, RAL, AML, and KLH. Running behavioral experiments: VRP, MFJ, and CAP.

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Correspondence to Angel I. Melo.

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Lucio, R.A., Aguilar-Pérez, C., Lomanowska, A.M. et al. Tactile stimulation prevents disruptions in male rat copulatory behavior induced by artificial rearing. Int J Impot Res 35, 132–139 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41443-022-00530-2

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