Chronic prenatal exposure to paroxetine (Paxil) and cognitive development of mice offspring

This study investigated the impact on cognitive development in CD-1 mice from chronic prenatal exposure to the antidepressant paroxetine. CD-1 mice were given either paroxetine as 30 mg/kg/day or a placebo in food bars for 2 weeks before mating and throughout gestation. One offspring per gender from each litter was tested on each of the following tasks: tube runway, spatial maze, passive avoidance chamber, and water straight runway followed by an unforced decision maze. Learning occurred in both genders in all tasks (p<0.001) with no significant differences between treatment groups at the final learning session. Juvenile runway was the only task in which the paroxetine-exposed males demonstrated a learning rate that was slower than the placebo-exposed offspring (p=0.06). Post learning sessions did not show any significant treatment differences during the juvenile and adult periods during the water straight runway, mazes, and avoidance chamber tasks. In conclusion, chronic prenatal exposure in mice of paroxetine did not impact cognition on select tasks.