Fig. 4.

Perinatal interruption of the glutamine-glutamate cycle via MeAIB administration (5 mm/1 μL, bilateral, icv) for two consecutive days on postnatal day (PN)0 and PN1 consistently reduced the sexual behavior of female rats but had no effect on that of male rats during adulthood. The scatter plots in a–e show no effect of neonatal MeAIB pretreatment on the total number (No.) of mounts (a), total number of intromissions (b), total number of ejaculations (c), latency to first mounting (d), or latency to first intromission (e) in males during a 30‐min test period. In contrast, neonatal MeAIB pretreatment reduced the frequency and strength of lordosis behavior as assessed using the lordosis quotient (LQ; f) and lordosis score (LS; g) in females. There were 5 females and 5–8 males per group in each set of conditions. LS, *p = 0.025, t₈ = 2.76; LQ, **p = 0.008, t₈ = 3.48, compared with the corresponding control groups using t tests. icv, intracerebroventricular injection.