Influence of Vibrissectomy in Early Postnatal Ontogeny of Rat Pups on Behavioral Development

The influence of daily all whiskers trimming from the 2nd or 9th to 20th postnatal day on maturation time of walking, rearing, grooming, manipulation activity and eye opening was studied in deprived rat pups and their sibs. In pups trimmed beginning from the day 2 and their sibs, eye opening occurs earlier. Also, grooming and rearing mature earlier, whereas manipulation activity forms later. The structure of correlations between maturation time of behavioral reactions and the day of eye opening changes. In pups trimmed beginning from the day 9, the majority of correlations disappears, dynamics of behavior development do not change. In their sib, maturation of manipulation activity is delayed, but changes in the structure of correlations are manifest less than in deprived pups.