An assessment of factors contributing to instrumental performance for sexual reward in the rat.

Male and female rats were gonadectomized, implanted in adulthood with capsules containing either testosterone propionate (TP) or cholesterol, and were trained to lever press for access to an oestrous female. When lever press performance was tested in extinction, only the male rats implanted with TP displayed significantly higher levels of responding than controls, demonstrating that lever pressing for oestrous females as a reward is sexually dimorphic. Ejaculation patterns from a separate assessment of these rats' copulatory ability were significantly correlated with their instrumental performance. In a second experiment, "masculinized" females exposed to TP postnatally and given TP implants responded in extinction at mean levels equivalent to those exhibited by adult males that were either intact or castrated with androgen replacement. These data suggest that organizational steroid exposure perinatally affects the actual reward value assigned to oestrous females in adulthood, in combination with consummatory sexual experience.