The effect of prenatal morphine exposure on memory consolidation in the chick.
The central nervous system exhibits remarkable plasticity in early life and can be altered significantly by prenatal morphine exposure. Previous studies show that prenatal morphine exposure may alter the capacity for learning and memory in post-partum chicks. The one-trial passive avoidance learning paradigm with 1-day-old chicks is an excellent model to study several mechanisms of memory formation, including STM, ITM, and LTM. The following represents our investigation of the effect of prenatal morphine exposure on learning and memory deficits in the chick. In these experiments, morphine was injected into the airspace of eggs (20 mg/kg) and the one-trial passive avoidance learning paradigm was used to test the effect of prenatal morphine exposure on memory consolidation. The data suggest that chicks injected with morphine daily from E12 to E16 had significantly impaired long-term memory at 120 min after training (p<0.001) but not intermediate-term memory at 30 min after training.
Che
Yi
Y
Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Science, Kunming 650223, PR China.
Sun
Huaying
H
Tan
Hua
H
Peng
Yanping
Y
Zeng
Tao
T
Ma
Yuanye
Y
D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000187:drug effects / Q000503:physiopathology; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002645:Chickens; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000503:physiopathology; D009020:Morphine / Q000633:toxicity*; D009021:Morphine Dependence / Q000503:physiopathology*; D009294:Narcotics / Q000633:toxicity; D011957:Receptors, Opioid / Q000819:agonists / Q000378:metabolism
D009294:Narcotics; D011957:Receptors, Opioid; D009020:Morphine