{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.025810721376571807, 'fraction_numerical': 0.016214427531436135, 'mean_word_length': 4.780114722753346, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 3, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 1, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Selective Association of Grooming Acts and Penile Reflexes in Rats

Pharmacologial treatments have been described that increase grooming or penile reflexes or both. In some of these studies only one of these behaviors has been recorded, and for the most part attention has not been paid to the sequential ordering of these behaviors or of their components. It is therefore unknown whether grooming of the genitalia may provoke, or be provoked by, penile reflexes, or whether each behavior may be independently potentiated by pharmacological treatments and the physiological states they provoke. Our study was directed at beginning to answer this question. We examined the frequency, duration, and sequence of grooming acts occurring in association with penile reflexes displayed spontaneously outside the context of copulation. Male rats (n = 13, 2-3 months old) were restrained in supine position with the penile sheath retracted as described previously.’ The anterior torso and head were enclosed in a clear cylinder with an internal diameter (80 or 85 mm) that allowed the rat to groom his head and forepaws and to flex his neck enough to lick his anterior ventrum. Restraint was provided by paper (masking) tape placed across the midsection and over the base of the hindlegs and tail. After 2 or 3 weekly preliminary tests, the final test was administered. In this 30-min test, the animal’s behavior was videotaped for subsequent analysis. A video date-time generator facilitated measurement of intervals and durations. Grooming was classified according to its target, but in practice only paw licking and ventral licking occurred often enough during the target intervals to be included in the analyses. We assumed that without the restraint most episodes of ventral grooming would have been directed at the penis. Penile responses were classified as erections (engorgement of the corpus spongiosum) or “flips” (engorgement of the corpora cavernosa, resulting in rapid anteroflexion of the glans). These responses occur in clusters of 1 to 6 or more events within 3 to 10 s. Interevent intervals of more than 15 s defined separate penile response clusters (PRCs). For many of the data analyses, we compared grooming during 10 s centered on the midpoint of PRCs with grooming during 10 s centered on the midpoint of intercluster intervals. As summarized in FIGURE 1, ventral grooming was about three times as likely to occur during PRCs as between them (p < 0.05). Licking of the forepaws was also reliably associated with PRCs (p < 0.01), but the magnitude of the difference in proportion was not as great as that for ventral grooming. The occurrence of flips within a cluster potentiated both paw and ventral grooming: the mean proportion of PRCs associated with paw licking increased from 0.38 to 0.53 if the PRC contained flips (p > 0.10) and the increase for ventral licking was from 0.21 to 0.42 (p < 0.05, one-tailed 1-test). A major difference between paw licking and ventral licking is that the former preceded