Fig. 8.

The effect of DON on maternal care. a The percentage of the total time the control (saline-injected) and the DON injected animals spent with suckling in the tested 60 min following the return of the pups after 1-h separation from them. On the first day, each group received saline injection and spent a similarly large percentage of their time with suckling. On the second day, saline (blue) or DON (red) was administered to the 2 groups of animals. DON injection markedly reduced the time spent with suckling as compared to the control group as well as to previous day self-control data. b The illustration shows how the control and DON-treated animals behaved during the test period. It is visible that the time DON injected animals saved with reduced suckling time was spent mostly with exploration. c The results of the pup retrieval tests (first, third and last pup) are shown in a way that data from individual animals can be appreciated. Data points of the same animals are shown with the same colour in both the DON treated and the control group. Furthermore, data points for the withdrawal time of the same number of pups (first, third or last) are connected with lines. The latency to take back the pups to the nest was significantly increased as compared to previous day control values of the same animals in response to DON injection (upper panels) whereas the latency of withdrawal was not changed between the first and second day in the group where the rats received saline injection both days (lower panel)