Olfactory conditioning impairment following posttraining NMDA receptor blockade in neonatal rats

Six-day-old Sprague-Dawley rat pups were exposed to peppermint odor paired with tactile stimulation (stroking the skin with a paint brush) for twenty 10-s conditioning trials, and their olfactory preference was tested the next day. In Experiment 1, pups that had received an injection of the noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist MK-801 (0.1 mg/kg, i.p.) either 30 min before or immediately after conditioning spent less time over the conditioned odor than saline-treated controls. In Experiment 2, pups received an injection of either MK-801 or saline 0, 30, or 60 min after the training period. There was a reduction in the preference for the conditioned odor in the animals receiving MK-801 immediately following training, but treatment with the drug at the other intervals did not produce a performance impairment. The impairment following immediate posttraining injection occurred with either 0.05 or 0.1, but not with 0.01 mg/kg of MK-801 (Experiment 3). Experiment 4 provided control data to confirm that pups that had experienced the procedures used in Experiments 1-3 showed greater preference for the conditioned odor than did naive pups or those receiving exposure to the odor without stroking. The data indicate that immediate posttraining activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors is required for normal olfactory learning in neonatal rats.