INIMEC - CONICET   05467
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACION MEDICA MERCEDES Y MARTIN FERREYRA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Ethanol-mediated aversive learning as a function of locomotor activity in a novel environment in infant Sprague-Dawley rats.
Autor/es:
ARIAS, C.; MOLINA, JC; SPEAR, NE
Revista:
PHARMACOLOGY BIOCHEMISTRY AND BEHAVIOR
Editorial:
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
Referencias:
Año: 2009 vol. 92 p. 621 - 628
ISSN:
0091-3057
Resumen:
Unlike adult heterogeneous rats, infant rats are sensitive to ethanol's
locomotor stimulating effects. Susceptibility to this ethanol effect
varies as a function of baseline locomotor activity levels. Infant rats
with higher baseline activity levels are more sensitive to ethanol's
stimulating effects than those with lower baseline activity levels. The
present study was designed to analyze susceptibility to ethanol-induced
motivational learning in subpopulations of infant heterogeneous rats
that differ in baseline activity in a novel environment. On postnatal
day 11 (PD 11) baseline locomotor activity was registered and infants
were divided into high and low responders (HR, LR). In Experiment 1,
pups were trained in a procedure of conditioned taste aversion employing
ethanol (0.0, 0.5 or 2.5 g/kg) as unconditioned stimulus (US) and
saccharin as conditioned stimulus. In Experiment 2 the same procedure
was employed with LiCl (0.0, 0.25 or 0.5% of body weight of a 0.3 M LiCl
solution) as US. HR were more resistant to the aversive effects of
ethanol than LR while magnitude of LiCl-induced conditioned taste
aversion was similar in HR and LR. These results suggest the possibility
of early detection of subpopulations of rats with differential
sensitivity to ethanol's effects.