The effect of a single neonatal treatment (hormonal imprinting) with the antihormones, tamoxifen and mifepristone on the sexual behavior of adult rats

Hormonal imprinting takes place perinatally during the first encounter between the hormone and its developing receptor. The presence of an excess of related molecules in that time provokes faulty (pathological) imprinting. In the present experiments single-neonatal treatment with 100 mug of tamoxifen completely abolished the adult male and female rats' sexual activity. Similar treatment with 100 mug of mifepristone (RU486) significantly enhanced the males sexual activity and nonsignificantly increased that of the females. The results demonstrate the importance of pathological imprinting during the perinatal development of sexual behavior. There are clear differences between the molecules having steroid (mifepristone) or non-steroid (tamoxifen) character, mediated through a ligand-receptor complex, and its effect in activating particular genes. (C) 2001 Academic Press.