title: Noise exposure at young age impairs the auditory object exploration behavior of rats in adulthood.
abstract: Environment noise is ubiquitous in our daily life. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of postnatal exposure to moderate-level noise on the auditory object exploration behavior of adult rats by comparing the ability of three groups of rats to locate a sound source in a water maze. Two groups of rats, either in the critical period of hearing development or in adulthood, were exposed to 80 dB SPL interrupted white noise for 8 h per day for two weeks. The control group of rats was not exposed to the noise. The ability of the rats to locate a hidden platform that was situated near a sound source in a water maze was tested starting on postnatal day 77. A continuous improvement in the performance of control rats and rats exposed to noise in adulthood was observed during training, whereas rats exposed to noise at a young age exhibited a significantly worse performance. These findings indicated that long-term exposure of young rats to moderate-level noise caused significant impairment of their auditory object exploration behavior compared to exposure of adult animals to the same moderate-level noise.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Science, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China. jpzhang@bio.ecnu.edu.cn
authors.forename: Jiping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Fei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Pu
authors.forename: Xinde
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000009:adverse effects; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001308:Auditory Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology* / Q000528:radiation effects; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology / Q000528:radiation effects; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013550:Swimming