Perinatal undernutrition impairs spatial learning in recovered adult rats.

Learning ability of adult rats undernourished at perinatal age and nutritionally recovered (D-rats) was assayed in the Morris water maze test as compared with controls (C-rats). D-rats showed longer escape latencies to locate a hidden platform in absence of proximal cues during the acquisition period. Swimming pre-training experience did not improve this shortcoming. Retention scores obtained 1, 3, 10 and 30 days after training showed that spatial information was efficiently consolidated after acquisition since D-rats performed as well as C-rats on retention tests. A cue learning task revealed no significant differences between both groups. These results suggest that perinatal undernutrition induces, even after a long period of nutritional recovery, a deficit in efficient place navigation in adult rats.