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Effects of home-nest odors on the startle response in preweanling rats
1School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. R.Richardson@unsw.edu.au
Physiology & Behavior
|November 17, 1998
Abstract:
The present study examined the effects of a highly preferred, biologically relevant olfactory stimulus (i.e., home-nest odors) on the startle response in preweanling rats. Although the rats detected the odor (as revealed by reductions in ultrasound vocalizations) it had no effect on either the initial magnitude of the startle response or habituation of this response across 80 test trials. These results are discussed in relation to recent studies on modulation of the startle response in developing rats, the effects of olfactory stimuli on the startle response, and the pleasure-attenuation of startle in nonhuman subjects.