A influência da redução farmacológica da prolactina na responsividade de machos adultos de sagui à vocalização de filhotes recém-nascidos

Abstract

Parental care is described in the literature as a form of investment that includes all parenting activities directed to offspring, in order to ensure the survival and growth of offspring. In mammals, the mother appears as the preferred caregiver; however, in some species, the male and other members of the group participate directly in caring for the infant as is the case of our study subject, the common Callithrix jacchus. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of the hormone prolactin on the alloparental responsivity of C. jacchus adult males when exposed to unrelated infants. For this, the dopaminergic agonist bromocriptine was used to reduce prolactin levels in 8 adult males of C. jacchus, 4 of which had previous experience and the other 4 had no prior experience in caring for infants. The animals were tested 3 times with bromocriptine and 3 times with the vehicle (control) when exposed to the vocalization of the infant by means of a professional recorder. A significant reduction in the approximation, locomotion, and time of proximity of the animals to the sound source was found when they were administered with bromocriptine when administered with the vehicle. Furthermore, we did not find a significant difference in the behavioral response of the animals in relation to the previous experience in the care, except for the locomotion in which the inexperienced animals moved more by the cage in both conditions and in the time of proximity, in which the animals experienced closer to the sound source than the inexperienced both when administered with the vehicle and bromocriptine. Thus, it is suggested that prolactin may be important to facilitate the alloparental responsivity of animals to the infant's stimulus, but is not essential for its expression and other factors are involved in modulating this behavior as the previous experience in the care.