Figure 6.

For recently postpartum female rats (n = 16), mean (±SEM) time spent on a given side with simultaneous access to pups and food in a restricted and then unrestricted manner (Experiment 3). Postpartum rats show altered time allocation to the stimuli only during unrestricted access and after 5 or 10 h deprivation from pup (P) and food (F) stimuli (i.e., 5P5F, 10P10F, 5P10F, 10P5F). During unrestricted access, postpartum dams spent increased time with pups and decreased time with food compared with: (1) the no deprivation condition (0P0F, average across the 4 d), (2) the restricted access to stimuli, and (3) each other. When both pup and food deprivations were maximal (i.e., 10P10F), postpartum dams had further decreases in time spent on the side associated with unrestricted food stimuli. ^dp < 0.05, different from other deprivation conditions during unrestricted access for a given stimulus. After deprivation: ^#p < 0.05, access difference for a given stimulus; and *p < 0.05, unrestricted stimulus difference.