title: Prenatal alcohol exposure causes attention deficits in male rats.
abstract: Children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) are often diagnosed with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These children show increases in reaction time (RT) variability and false alarms on choice reaction time (CRT) tasks. In this study, adult rats prenatally exposed to ethanol were trained to perform a CRT task. An analysis of the distribution of RTs obtained from the CRT task found that rats with a history of prenatal ethanol exposure had more variable RT distributions, possibly because of lapses of attention. In addition, it was found that, similar to children with FASD, the ethanol-exposed rats had more false alarms. Thus, rats with prenatal ethanol exposure show attention deficits that are similar to those of children with FASD and ADHD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Kathryn A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Hausknecht
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Acheson
authors.forename: Andrew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Farrar
authors.forename: Artur K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Kieres
authors.forename: Roh-Yu
authors.initials: RY
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Jerry B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Richards
authors.forename: Karen E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Sabol
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000187:drug effects*; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants / Q000633:toxicity*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D000431:Ethanol / Q000633:toxicity*; D005260:Female; D063647:Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000662:veterinary; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D011930:Reaction Time
chemical_list: D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants; D000431:Ethanol