Effects of prenatal alcohol axplosure on activity, anxiety and learning in young adult Wistar rats

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2005

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Dursun, İlknur

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The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of prenatal exposure to alcohol on sensorimotor coordination, emotionality, learning and memory in young adult Wistar rats. Most of the recent reports concerning behavioral effects of fetal alcohol exposure refer to the juvenile period of life and very few studies investigated different aspects of behavior simultaneously in the same subjects. In the current study, alcohol was delivered to the pregnant dams by intragastric infusions, throughout gestation days (GD) 7-20, at the dose of 6g /kg maternal body weight /day. This dose resulted in relatively high peak blood alcohol concentration (340 mg/dl) as assessed on GD 20. A pair-fed isocaloric and untreated control groups were included. Prenatal alcohol administration retarded dams̕ weight gain significantly, and had an adverse effect on pups̕ weight at birth but not in adulthood. No between-group differences were observed in the litter size and in the pups̕ mortality. The adult brain weight was neither affected. Pups were subjected to a series of behavioural tests as young adults (at 2.5 months of age). In adulthood, rats prenatally treated with alcohol were not impaired in sensorimotor coordination and/or did not show muscle weakness as assessed by rotarod/accelerod tests. Their behavior in the open field and plus maze suggested alcohol-induced increase in iv anxiety level and some decrease in behavioral flexibility, but hyperactivity was not observed. In cognitive tasks, alcohol treated rats showed slightly slower rate of initial place learning in the water maze. However, memory retention tested after 1 and 10-day delay, reversal learning, rate of extinction of place preference, as well as working memory capacity appeared to be the same in alcohol exposed and control rats. The possible reasons of this negative result are discussed.

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General Biology.

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http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12605930/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/14942

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

İ. Dursun, “Effects of prenatal alcohol axplosure on activity, anxiety and learning in young adult Wistar rats,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2005.