Impact of lead sub-chronic toxicity on recognition memory and motor activity of Wistar rat

The aim of this research was to investigate the impact of lead nitrate administered in drinking water during 90 days (sub-chronic toxicity), on body weight gain, motor activity, brain lead accumulation and especially on recognition memory of Wistar rats. Two groups of young female Wistar rats were used. Treated rats received 20 mg L(-1) of lead nitrate diluted in drinking water, while control rats received drinking water only, for 3 months. An evolution of body weight, motor activity, object recognition memory and measure of brain lead levels has been evaluated. The body weight was taken weekly, whereas the memory abilities and the motor activity are measured once every fortnight alternatively, by submitting rats to the Open Field (OF) test and to the Novel Object Recognizing (NOR) memory test. The results have shown a non significant effect in gain of body weight. However, a high significance was shown for horizontal activity (p<0.01), long memory term (p<0.01), at the end of testing period and for brain lead levels (p<0.05) between studied groups.