Effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on activity and learning in Sprague-Dawley rats

Nulliparous pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to ethanol via a liquid diet technique (FAE, fetal alcohol exposure) or administered a fixed amount of control diet from gestational day 11 to day 21. The offspring, at 2-3 months of age, were studied in tests of mechanically monitored motor activity and learning acquisition in an automatized testing cage requiring an instrumental discriminative response, where the ability to learn and relearn correlations of a light signal to water presentation was monitored. A significantly reduced activity (i.e. ramp mounting behaviour) in a novel situation was obtained in the FAE group compared to controls. The initial disruption of ramp mounting behaviour could reflect alterations in either habituation to a novel test situation, altered neophobia, or some retardation in associating these responses with the outcome of water-availability. Adult FAE rats (six months of age) showed a tendency towards a lowered acquisition performance (p = 0.06) when tested in a circular Morris-type swim maze, but no detectable differences were shown in a motor activity test chamber situation.