Mouse-killing in the rat: effects of sensory deficits on attack behaviour and stereotyped biting

Sensory transections were performed in rats that killed mice after food-deprivation and subsequent satiation. Following partial maxillary or combined maxillary and optic deafferentation, but not after optic lesions alone, the number of mouse-kills declined sharply. This decline was accounted for by approximately a 50 per cent decrease in the number of mouse-presentations in which attack-behaviour took place and in the occurrence of attack-behaviour that did not always lead to a kill because rats frequently failed to bite. Furthermore, examination of killed mice revealed a shift in the distribution of body-bites away from the rostral regions normally seized by rats to more caudal areas of the mouse's body. Results indicate that certain stimulus-characteristics of mice mediated by the maxillary and optic nerves are important determinants of attack-behaviour and stereotyped biting in the rat.