Effects of environmentally differential rearing upon maze performance in prenatally irradiated microcephalic rats.
Pregnant rats received 100 rads of X-irradiation on day 17 of gestation. Control pregnant rats were sham-irradiated on the same gestation day. The male offspring were reared under environmentally enriched, standard colony, and impoverished conditions for 30 days after weaning. Then the Hebb-Williams maze test was carried out. All the prenatally X-irradiated rats were microcephalic: their mean cerebral wet weight was 15.5% less than controls. The effect of X-irradiation was not significant in error scores and running times, whereas the effect of environment was significant in these items; initial and total error scores and running times were decreased in enriched groups compared to impoverished groups in controls as well as in X-irradiated animals.
D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D005260:Female; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects*; D008831:Microcephaly / Q000523:psychology*; D009929:Organ Size; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012931:Social Environment; D014916:Whole-Body Irradiation