Abstract
Neonatally castrated male rats showed feminine behavior in- creases (compared with littermates castrated as adults) during testosterone-progesterone and estrogen treatments as well as during estrogen-progesterone treatment. They also showed masculine behavior deficits (compared with control castrates) during estrogen as well as testosterone treatment. Neonatally androgenized female rats were less receptive than female litter- mate controls under all hormone treatments: testosterone-progesterone, estrogen, and estrogen-progesterone. They were not different in masculine behavior tests from control females. These observations rule out the possibility that the eventual behavioral effects of neonatal androgen are all mediated solely by changes in a single hormone-specific reception or trigger mechanism. Neonatal hormone treatments also affected performance on non-sexual behavior tests. Neonatally castrated males tended to behave more like females – and neonatally androgenized females more like males – in the open field and in tests of emergence from the home cage. In addition, rats showing the greatest feminine receptivity tended to emerge fastest from their home cage, i.e., to behave more like females. Tests of mount latency in previously inexperienced rats and of sniffing time at the female’s anogenital region were conducted in an attempt to measure masculine sexual motivation independent of penile factors. These tests did not give reliable differences between neonatal treatment groups.