Behavioural deficits in adult rats following long-term adrenalectomy.
Long-term adrenalectomy results in loss of neurones in the hippocampal formation of the adult rat. The effects of long-term adrenalectomy on spatial learning and exploratory behaviour in adrenalectomized (ADX), adrenalectomized normal weight gain (ADXNW), sham operated and naive control male Sprague-Dawley rats were investigated in this study. The ADX rats had significantly longer latencies in the Morris maze task compared to the other groups. In the open-field situation, as a novel finding, the ADX rats showed significantly lower rearing scores compared to other groups. These data indicate that long-term adrenalectomy causes impairment in spatial learning and explorative behaviour in the rat.
D000315:Adrenalectomy; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001835:Body Weight; D016923:Cell Death; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013997:Time Factors