title: The impairment of one-trial passive avoidance learning in chicks caused by prenatal aluminum exposure.
abstract: Prenatal aluminum exposure may affect the development of the embryo and alter the capacity for learning and memory in adults. The chick embryo is a good experimental model to study the effect of prenatal toxin exposure on cognitive defects in offspring, because it eliminates maternal confounding variables. In the present study, we applied a one-trial passive avoidance-learning task in day-old chicks to examine the effects of prenatal aluminum chloride injections (2, 20, and 200 mM in 200 µl per egg, daily over a period of 4 successive days) on memory consolidation. The data suggest that chicks injected with aluminum chloride (20 mM) daily from E12 to E15 had significantly impaired short-term memory, intermediate-term memory, and long-term memory (LTM) after training (p < .05) but chicks injected with aluminum chloride (2 mM) had impaired LTM only.
authors.affiliation: College of Preclinical Medicine and Biological Science, Soochow University, Suzhou Jiangsu Province 215123, PR China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Xing
authors.forename: Zhaomin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: Hongbing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Yonghua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Yanwen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Shiqing
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Che
mesh_terms: D000077410:Aluminum Chloride; D017607:Aluminum Compounds / Q000009:adverse effects*; D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002645:Chickens; D002712:Chlorides / Q000009:adverse effects*; D057567:Memory, Long-Term / Q000187:drug effects; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000187:drug effects; D023421:Models, Animal
chemical_list: D017607:Aluminum Compounds; D002712:Chlorides; D000077410:Aluminum Chloride