Body weight gain and hippocampal volumes of rats exposed neonatally to psychostimulants.
There is increasing evidence that early exposure to psychostimulants exerts long-lasting effects on the central nervous system. Yet, analysis of the body weight gain and volumetric determinations of brain areas have not been performed by comparing the effects of neonatal exposure to cocaine and amphetamine. Male (Wistar) rats were given cocaine hydrochloride (15 mg/kg body weight/day), D-amphetamine sulphate (25 mg/kg body weight/day) or saline, s.c., twice daily, from postnatal day (PND) 1 to 30. The experimental design used random permuted blocks of 4 males per litter -9 litters for body weight gain evolution and 9 for the analysis of body, brain and cerebellum at PND30. Volumes of the hippocampal formation were calculated in horizontal serial sections of celloidin embedded material from 6 animals per group. The analysis of body weight gain evolution was performed using discriminant functions and allowed the separation of the amphetamine group from the remainder and the control from the psychostimulants group; weight gain in PND 24-30 period presented the highest discriminating power. The mean volume of the hippocampal formation was lower in the psychostimulants group, and the differences were significant in the molecular layer of the dentate gyrus of cocaine and amphetamine exposed animals when compared with the controls.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Tavares
M A
MA
Institute of Anatomy, Medical School of Porto, Portugal.
Silva
M C
MC
D000661:Amphetamine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001835:Body Weight / Q000187:drug effects*; D003042:Cocaine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000254:growth & development; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size / Q000187:drug effects; D016548:Prosencephalon / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D015430:Weight Gain
D000661:Amphetamine; D003042:Cocaine