Neonatal chlordecone exposure impairs early learning and retention of active avoidance in the rat.

The effect of neonatal exposure of rats to chlordecone on the acquisition and retention of active avoidance was investigated. Pups were trained and tested on one-way (preweaning) and/or two-way (post-weaning) active avoidance tasks. Offspring of Fischer-344 rats were administered 1 mg/pup of chlordecone (SC) dissolved in DMSO on postnatal day 4. Body weights were slightly, but significantly, depressed for chlordecone-exposed males (10-11%) and females (7-8%) during preweaning development. Post-weaning body weights were also slightly depressed by the chlordecone treatment (8% for the males, 7% for the females). For pups trained (day 18) on one-way (small to large compartment) active avoidance (OWA), chlordecone treatment increased the number of trials needed to attain the acquisition criterion; the effect was most pronounced in the males. A 72-hr retention test revealed a sex-dependent effect of chlordecone on response latency during the initial test trials. Acquisition of two-way avoidance (TWA) (days 28-30) was superior in female pups relative to males; chlordecone treatment significantly reduced this sex difference in pups which had prior or no prior OWA training. Perhaps most importantly, however, following prior OWA training, vehicle control pups demonstrated a directional bias to make an avoidance response from a small to a large compartment, whereas chlordecone-treated pups executed their avoidance responses in both directions at comparable rates. Similar evidence indicative of a selective retention deficit also characterized TWA performance when a "reversal" procedure was used. A final retention (extinction) session indicated that the chlordecone-treated pups made fewer responses than vehicle-treated controls during the test trials.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)