title: Prenatal ethanol exposure impairs temporal ordering behaviours in young adult rats.
abstract: Prenatal ethanol exposure (PNEE) causes significant deficits in functional (i.e., synaptic) plasticity in the dentate gyrus (DG) and cornu ammonis (CA) hippocampal sub-regions of young adult male rats. Previous research has shown that in the DG, these deficits are not apparent in age-matched PNEE females. This study aimed to expand these findings and determine if PNEE induces deficits in hippocampal-dependent behaviours in both male and female young adult rats (PND 60). The metric change behavioural test examines DG-dependent deficits by determining whether an animal can detect a metric change between two identical objects. The temporal order behavioural test is thought to rely in part on the CA sub-region of the hippocampus and determines whether an animal will spend more time exploring an object that it has not seen for a larger temporal window as compared to an object that it has seen more recently. Using the liquid diet model of FASD (where 6.6% (v/v) ethanol is provided through a liquid diet consumed ad libitum throughout the entire gestation), we found that PNEE causes a significant impairment in the temporal order task, while no deficits in the DG-dependent metric change task were observed. There were no significant differences between males and females for either task. These results indicate that behaviours relying partially on the CA-region may be more affected by PNEE than those that rely on the DG.
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Sciences, Island Medical Program, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Electronic address: anna.r.patten@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Anna R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Patten
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Sciences, Island Medical Program, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sawchuk
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Sciences, Island Medical Program, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Ryan C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Wortman
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Sciences, Island Medical Program, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Patricia S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Brocardo
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Sciences, Island Medical Program, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Joana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gil-Mohapel
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Sciences, Island Medical Program, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Brain Research Centre and Program in Neuroscience, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Brian R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Christie
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants / Q000633:toxicity*; D018891:Dentate Gyrus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000196:embryology; D000431:Ethanol / Q000633:toxicity*; D005260:Female; D063647:Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000196:embryology; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000503:physiopathology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley
chemical_list: D002492:Central Nervous System Depressants; D000431:Ethanol
keywords: Behaviour; Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders; Hippocampus; Metric change; Temporal order