Repeated neonatal phencyclidine treatment impairs performance of a spatial task in juvenile rats.
The present study was designed to determine whether repeated postnatal blockade of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) channel produces cognitive deficit in juvenile rats. Rats receive phencyclidine (PCP) intraperitoneally (i.p.) from postnatal Day 5 and continued daily till Day 15. On Day 28, saline- and PCP-treated rats were trained in the Morris water maze task. PCP-treated rats performed as well as the saline-treated rats on the first day of testing, but on the second day of testing they did significantly poorly compared to saline-treated controls. These data suggest that chronic postnatal NMDA channel blockade by PCP impairs processes that enable rats to retain spatial information.
Sircar
R
R
Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461, USA. sircar@aecom.yu.edu
Rudy
J W
JW
D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn / Q000502:physiology*; D018691:Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005260:Female; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D010622:Phencyclidine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012153:Retention, Psychology / Q000187:drug effects; D013028:Space Perception / Q000187:drug effects*
D018691:Excitatory Amino Acid Antagonists; D010622:Phencyclidine