Abstract
Numerous experiments 1 - 5 have demonstrated a significant relationship between the level of spontaneous activity in male rats, as measured by revolving drums, and the presence or the absence of the testes. Castration is followed by a marked decrease in spontaneous activity. Although the reduction is somewhat less striking when castration is performed on infantile males than when it is performed on fully developed males, 6 there is at either age a decline in spontaneous activity that may be ascribed to the loss of gonadal secretions.
A clear relationship has also been shown to exist between copulatory behavior and the presence or absence of the testes. Young male rats castrated prior to puberty seldom if ever copulate or display aggressive sexual behavior toward receptive females; furthermore, adult males, although copulating for some weeks or even months after castration, 7 soon show a measurable reduction in sexual drive as measured either by direct tests of copulatory frequency or by obstruction tests. 8 These facts indicate that reduction in spontaneous activity and reduction in quantitative expressions of sexual vigor go hand in hand in castrated males when the latter are compared with normal males. They also suggest the possibility of using the revolving drum technique to study sexual drive in normal males; however, it should be borne in mind that an instrument that adequately registers wide variations in a given phenomenon may be wholly inadequate when fine discriminations are required. The usefulness of revolving drums in studying sexual drive in intact animals must be determined by special experiments.
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