title: The behavioral response to novelty is altered in rats neonatally exposed to cocaine.
abstract: It has recently been suggested that the effects of in utero cocaine exposure may result in subtle deficits related to a challenging environment, including exposure to novelty or stress. This study used a neonatal drug-exposure model to examine the behavioral response to a novel environment in rodents. Subjects were artificially reared (AR) from postnatal Days 4-10. There were four treatment groups; AR 40 mg/kg/day cocaine, AR 20 mg/kg/day cocaine, AR control group receiving no drug, and a normally reared control. In Experiment 1, subjects were tested for their preference of maternal home-cage or clean wood-chip odors in a T-maze on postnatal Day 15. Subjects from all treatment groups preferred the maternal odor. In Experiment 2, subjects were habituated to four familiar odors and tested with a novel odor in an open field (postnatal Days 16-21). Neonatal exposure to 20 mg/kg/day cocaine led to an overall increase in exploratory behavior during testing, whereas 40 mg/kg/day did not, supporting the hypothesis that developmental exposure to cocaine at some doses may alter the offspring's response to a changing environment.
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Willford
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Segar
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Barron
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003042:Cocaine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley
chemical_list: D003042:Cocaine