Sustained attachment to the nipple in the newborn rat depends on experience with the nipple, milk, and the expression of oral grasping.
Newborn rats showed mouthing, licking, and oral grasping when presented with a surrogate nipple. These responses changed after the pup expressed an oral grasp response and experienced milk at the nipple. Newborn pups that ingested milk from the surrogate nipple showed brief oral grasp responses and, when tested 1 hr later, showed sustained attachment to an empty surrogate nipple. Contact with the nipple, oral grasping of the nipple, and experience with milk altered subsequent behavioral responses to the nipple. Classical and instrumental conditioning may play a role in transforming brief oral grasp responses into longer oral grasp responses and sustained attachment to the nipple.
Petrov
E S
ES
Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York, 13902-6000, USA.
Varlinskaya
E I
EI
Bregman
K
K
Smotherman
W P
WP
D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008893:Milk Ejection / Q000502:physiology; D009042:Motivation; D011247:Pregnancy; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013391:Sucking Behavior / Q000502:physiology*