Dopaminergic activity mediates pups' over male preference of postpartum estrous rats

Pups have greater incentive value than males for rats during the postpartum estrus (PPE); a period when females are both maternally and sexually motivated. Mesolimbic dopaminergic system has been proposed as a general motivational circuit; however in the literature it has been more related to the control of the motivational aspects of maternal than sexual motivation of females. Therefore, we aimed to assess the effect of antagonizing dopaminergic neurotransmission of PPE females on their preference for pups over a male. To achieve this objective we tested PPE rats in a Y-maze with three-choice chambers (one containing eight pups, the other a male and the last one no stimulus) after the systemic administration of the dopaminergic antagonist haloperidol (0.0; 0.025 or 0.05 mg/kg). Furthermore, to determine if this dopaminergic antagonist differentially affects maternal and sexual motivations when pups and male are not competing, we evaluated the effect of haloperidol in the preference of females for pups vs. a non-receptive female and for a male vs. a non-receptive female. In the preference test for pups vs. male, both doses of haloperidol decreased the time that females spent in pups' chamber while increased the time that they spent in male's chamber, resulting in a lack of preference between both incentives. Besides, haloperidol reduced the effort -attempts to get access to the stimuli- made by the females to obtain the pups. Conversely, 0.05 mg/kg of haloperidol did not affect the preference for both incentives when they were confronted to a non-receptive female. Together, these results indicate that the dopaminergic activity mediates pups' preference over male during the PPE and point toward a more relevant role of this system in females' behavioral output when incentives are competing.