In utero alcohol exposure: functional and structural brain damage.
Pregnant rats were intubated with alcohol throughout gestation. Control animals received vehicle and were pair-fed. At birth, all offspring were surrogate-fostered to nontreated dams. At 11 weeks of age, alcohol-exposed animals did not perform as well in a two-way shock avoidance task. The brains of these animals also exhibited significant deficits in dendritic structure in the area of the hippocampus. These behavioral observations may be a counterpart to the learning deficits associated with fetal alcohol effects, e.g., fetal alcohol syndrome in humans and animals, and the neuroanatomical observations suggest a structural basis for these learning deficits.
D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D000431:Ethanol / Q000633:toxicity*; D005260:Female; D063647:Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000187:drug effects; D011247:Pregnancy; D011712:Pyramidal Tracts / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology; D051381:Rats
D000431:Ethanol