title: Acute and chronic ethanol intake: effects on spatial and non-spatial memory in rats.
abstract: Abusive alcohol consumption produces neuronal damage and biochemical alterations in the mammal brain followed by cognitive disturbances. In this work rats receiving chronic and acute alcohol intake were evaluated in a spontaneous delayed non-matching to sample/position test. Chronic alcohol-treated rats had free access to an aqueous ethanol solution as the only available liquid source from the postnatal day 21 to the end of experiment (postnatal day 90). Acute alcoholic animals received an injection of 2 g/kg ethanol solution once per week. Subjects were evaluated in two tests (object recognition and spatial recognition) based on the spontaneous delayed non-matching to sample or to position paradigm using delays of 1 min, 15 min and 60 min. Results showed that chronic and acute alcohol intake impairs the rats' performance in both tests. Moreover, chronic alcohol-treated rats were more altered than acute treated animals in both tasks. Our results support the idea that chronic and acute alcohol administration during postnatal development caused widespread brain damage resulting in behavioral disturbances and learning disabilities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychobiology, Education Faculty, Complutense University of Madrid, C/ Rector Royo Villanova s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain. luismgm@edu.ucm.es
authors.forename: Luis M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: García-Moreno
authors.forename: Jose M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Cimadevilla
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000523:psychology; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D000431:Ethanol / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol