Acute ethanol exposure during pregnancy in rats: effects upon a multiple learning task.
Pregnant rats received 4.8 g/kg of 20% (v/v) ethanol IP or identical volume of saline during gestational Day 8. No signs of gross physical teratogenesis were evident in the offspring as expressed by litter size, weight and external malformations at birth. However, when offspring were subjected to a multiple fixed ratio-4/differential reinforcement of low rate of responding 10-sec ( FR 4/DRL 10 sec) schedule of reinforcement at 60 days of age, significant differences were observed in the performance of DRL 10-sec schedule that required visual discrimination and response inhibition, but not in the FR 4 schedule that required a relatively simple nondiscrimination task of active-response. Bar press rates were unaffected by prenatal treatment since no differences between groups were found in the number of total responses performed on either component of the multiple schedule. Present results are discussed in terms of either response perseveration or a lower aptitude to deal with low rates of responding-discrimination learning tasks on the animals prenatally exposed to alcohol.
Vigliecca
N S
NS
Departamento de Farmacología, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina.
Fulginiti
S
S
Minetti
S A
SA
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D000431:Ethanol / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005260:Female; D007858:Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D051381:Rats; D012016:Reference Values; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology
D000431:Ethanol