Modification of Phallus Development and Sexual Behavior in Rats Treated with Gonadotropin Antiserum Neonatally1

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Abstract
Male rats were injected with gonadotropin antiserum (GTH A/S) or normal rabbit serum on days 1, 3, and 5 of life. The former animals had normal testis growth and spermatic development at maturity; however, they failed to impregnate normal females with which they cohabited. The reproductive failure of these rats may have been largely a result of an incomplete pattern of masculine sexual behavior. It was found that the experimental males achieved very few intromissions and ejaculations in sex behavior tests when compared to control males injected with normal rabbit serum. Since the phallus was underdeveloped in GTH A/S treated males, these data do not distinguish between a peripheral or central neural cause for the behavioral deficit. However, the same males showed high levels of feminine sexual behavior after estrogen-progesterone priming, suggesting that behavioral centers in the CNS had not been “masculinized” during neonatal life. Nevertheless, masculinization of the GTH release mechanism(s) apparently was complete, since ovaries transplanted to GTH A/S males did not show development of corpora lutea. The fact that masculinization of behavioral centers did not occur in GTH A/S treated males suggests that the pituitary gland may participate in postnatal sexual differentiation of these centers. (Endocrinology90: 1025, 1972)

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