| Abstract: | Conducted prolonged tests of male Long-Evans rats' penile responses outside the context of copulation (ex copula) to facilitate analysis of these penile components of copulatory behavior. Penile erections and flips were evoked for 1 hr following penile sheath retraction (SR), and Ss were retested for 30 min after a rest interval of 5 min to 4 hr. The number of penile responses declined sharply over the course of 1 hr. Following a 5-min rest, there was little likelihood of additional responses. Within 2 hrs, some measures of penile response potential approached their original high asymptotes: other measures were still depressed after the 4-hr rest. In control tests, the penile sheath was unretracted (SU) during the 1st 60 min, and hence few or no penile responses occurred. This condition caused no reduction in the number of erections and flips in the subsequent 30-min SR test; hence, the reduction in response to potential during and after SR tests was due to the responses displayed, not to the conditions of restraint. Ejaculation occurred frequently in the SU condition but rarely in SR tests. These results suggest that SR may normally inhibit ejaculation in ex copula tests and during copulation. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
