Effects of early postnatal AF64A treatment on passive avoidance response and radial maze learning in rats

In order to investigate how the selectively lesioned cholinergic system at the early postnatal age influences adult learning behavior, the effects of postnatal administration of ethylcholine mustard aziridinium ion (AF64A), a selective cholinergic neurotoxin, on the acquisition of 2 kinds of learning tasks were examined. Rat pups received an intraventricular injection of AF64A (1.0 or 2.0 nmol) or saline on postnatal day 8, and in adulthood (at 3 months of age), they were tested with the acquisition of passive avoidance response (PAR) and 8-arm radial maze learning. In PAR testing, a significant impairment was observed in male AF64A-treated rats. In addition, in the radial maze task, AF64A-treated rats needed significantly more trials to acquire the task as compared with saline-treated animals. Histological examination after behavioral testings revealed a marked reduction of acetylcholinesterase-stained fibers in the hippocampus and dentate gyrus of the AF64A-treated groups, while there were no detectable changes in the striatum or cerebral cortex. The results suggest that early postnatal AF64A administration induced learning deficits in adulthood which were associated with long-lasting cholinergic denervation in hippocampal formation.