Scopolamine's effect on passive avoidance behavior in immature rats.
Male albion rats ranging in age from 15-30 days were injected with either scopolamine hydorbromide or saline, prior to training and retention testing on a black-white passive avoidance (PA) task. Pretraining administration of a 1.0-mg/kg dose of scopolamine significantly increased the median number of trails to criterion for 18-, 21-, and 30-day-old rat pups when compared with their saline controls. Fifteen-day-olds showed drug-related PA deficits when a 2.0-mg/kg dose was given. Retention data reflect characteristic age-dependent memory loss over the 1-week acquistionretention period with no apparent state-dependent effects. The data suggest the presence of cholinergic inhibitory mediation of PA responding in preweanling and postweanling pups.
D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn / Q000254:growth & development*; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects; D009433:Neural Inhibition; D051381:Rats; D012601:Scopolamine / Q000494:pharmacology*
D012601:Scopolamine