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The Effects of Ethanol on Spatial and Nonspatial Memory in Adolescent and Adult Rats Studied Using an Appetitive Paradigm
Author(s) -
RAJENDRAN P,
SPEAR L P
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1308.060
Subject(s) - morris water navigation task , psychology , ethanol , forebrain , spatial learning , developmental psychology , prefrontal cortex , open field , neuroscience , physiology , audiology , hippocampus , central nervous system , medicine , cognition , chemistry , psychiatry , biochemistry
A bstract : Adolescent rats have been reported to be less sensitive than adults to many acute ethanol effects, including ethanol‐induced sedation and motor impairment, but conversely more sensitive to ethanol‐induced disruptions in spatial memory in a Morris water maze (Markwiese et al. , 1998). The present study examined adolescent and adult rats trained for 6 days under spatial or nonspatial versions of a presumably less stressful sand box maze. Moderately food‐deprived animals were given 0, 0.5, or 1.5 g/kg ethanol intraperitoneally 30 min before training each day, but were tested without ethanol or reinforcer on test day. Spatial acquisition was impaired by 1.5 g/kg in adults but not adolescents, with no ethanol impairment on the nonspatial task at either age. These results are opposite the ontogenetic profile reported by Markwiese et al. , (1998) and may reflect differential activation of prefrontal cortex or other stress‐sensitive forebrain regions by the two tasks across age.