Prenatal Exposure to Diazepam Alters Behavioral Development in Rats

Characteristic potentiation of rat locomotion responses and acoustic startle reflexes that normally appear in the third postnatal week was absent in rats exposed to diazepam during the third week of gestation. Loss of these behaviors suggests a long-term effect that may result from changes in cellul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 207; no. 4427; pp. 205 - 207
Main Authors Kellogg, Carol, Tervo, Donna, Ison, James, Parisi, Thomas, Miller, Richard K.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 11.01.1980
Subjects
Animals
Auditory Perception - drug effects
Background noise
Behavior, Animal - drug effects
Dams
Developmental biology
Diazepam - pharmacology
Dosage
Female
Fetus - drug effects
Gestational Age
Locomotion
Motor Activity - drug effects
Pregnancy
Rats
Reflex, Startle - drug effects
Reproduction
Sound
Vehicles
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Summary:Characteristic potentiation of rat locomotion responses and acoustic startle reflexes that normally appear in the third postnatal week was absent in rats exposed to diazepam during the third week of gestation. Loss of these behaviors suggests a long-term effect that may result from changes in cellular development. Tissue undergoing neuronal differentiation may be especially sensitive to drugs that act on the central nervous system, and the period in which differentiation occurs is perhaps critical for the induction of changes that are later expressed as altered behavior.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.7350658