Hamilton Derek A, Barto Daniel, Rodriguez Carlos I, Magcalas Christy M, Fink Brandi C, Rice James P, Bird Clark W, Davies Suzy, Savage Daniel D
Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, United States; Department of Neurosciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, United States.
Behav Brain Res. 2014 Aug 1;269:44-54. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2014.04.029. Epub 2014 Apr 24.
Persistent deficits in social behavior are among the major negative consequences associated with exposure to ethanol during prenatal development. Prior work from our laboratory has linked deficits in social behavior following moderate prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) in the rat to functional alterations in the ventrolateral frontal cortex [21]. In addition to social behaviors, the regions comprising the ventrolateral frontal cortex are critical for diverse processes ranging from orofacial motor movements to flexible alteration of behavior in the face of changing consequences. The broader behavioral implications of altered ventrolateral frontal cortex function following moderate PAE have, however, not been examined. In the present study we evaluated the consequences of moderate PAE on social behavior, tongue protrusion, and flexibility in a variant of the Morris water task that required modification of a well-established spatial response. PAE rats displayed deficits in tongue protrusion, reduced flexibility in the spatial domain, increased wrestling, and decreased investigation, indicating that several behaviors associated with ventrolateral frontal cortex function are impaired following moderate PAE. A linear discriminant analysis revealed that measures of wrestling and tongue protrusion provided the best discrimination of PAE rats from saccharin-exposed control rats. We also evaluated all behaviors in young adult (4-5 months) or older (10-11 months) rats to address the persistence of behavioral deficits in adulthood and possible interactions between early ethanol exposure and advancing age. Behavioral deficits in each domain persisted well into adulthood (10-11 months), however, there was no evidence that aging enhances the effects of moderate PAE within the age ranges that were studied.
社会行为的持续性缺陷是产前发育期间接触乙醇所带来的主要负面后果之一。我们实验室之前的研究工作已将大鼠中度产前酒精暴露（PAE）后出现的社会行为缺陷与腹外侧前额叶皮质的功能改变联系起来[21]。除了社会行为外，构成腹外侧前额叶皮质的区域对于从口面部运动到面对不断变化的后果时行为的灵活改变等各种过程都至关重要。然而，中度PAE后腹外侧前额叶皮质功能改变所带来的更广泛行为影响尚未得到研究。在本研究中，我们在莫里斯水迷宫任务的一个变体中评估了中度PAE对社会行为、伸舌以及灵活性的影响，该变体需要修改一个既定的空间反应。PAE大鼠表现出伸舌缺陷、空间领域灵活性降低、扭打增加以及探究减少，这表明中度PAE后与腹外侧前额叶皮质功能相关的几种行为受到了损害。线性判别分析显示，扭打和伸舌测量能够最好地区分PAE大鼠和接触糖精的对照大鼠。我们还评估了年轻成年（4 - 5个月）或老年（10 - 11个月）大鼠的所有行为，以探讨成年期行为缺陷的持续性以及早期乙醇暴露与年龄增长之间可能的相互作用。每个领域的行为缺陷在成年期（10 - 11个月）都持续存在，然而，在所研究的年龄范围内，没有证据表明衰老会增强中度PAE的影响。
