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Chronic amphetamine exposure during the preweanling period does not affect avoidance learning or novelty-seeking of
S A McDougall1, A R Zavala, P E Karper
1Department of Psychology, California State University, San Bernardino 92407, USA. smcdouga@csusb.edu
Abstract:
The purpose of the present study was to determine whether exposure to amphetamine during the preweanling period would impact the learning or reward processes of rats tested in adulthood. In three experiments we examined whether amphetamine treatment (0-10 mg/kg per day) on postnatal days 11-17 altered the subsequent performance of adult Sprague-Dawley rats on a step-down passive avoidance, active avoidance, or novelty-seeking task. There was no evidence that postnatal amphetamine exposure affected performance on any of these tasks. These results suggest that the long-term impact of pre- and postnatal psychostimulant exposure differs, because in utero stimulant treatment is known to produce learning deficits and decrease reinforcement efficacy of rats tested in adulthood.
