Moderate Prenatal Alcohol Exposure and Quantification of Social Behavior in Adult Rats

Abstract

Alterations in social behavior are among the major negative consequences observed in children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs). Several independent laboratories have demonstrated robust alterations in the social behavior of rodents exposed to alcohol during brain development across a wide range of exposure durations, timing, doses, and ages at the time of behavioral quantification. Prior work from this laboratory has identified reliable alterations in specific forms of social interaction following moderate prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) in the rat that persist well into adulthood, including increased wrestling and decreased investigation. These behavioral alterations have been useful in identifying neural circuits altered by moderate PAE(1), and may hold importance for progressing toward a more complete understanding of the neural bases of PAE-related alterations in social behavior. This paper describes procedures for performing moderate PAE in which rat dams voluntarily consume ethanol or saccharin (control) throughout gestation, and measurement of social behaviors in adult offspring.

The impact of prenatal alcohol exposure on social, cognitive and affective behavioral domains: Insights from rodent models

“…There is a clear detrimental effect of PAE across a variety of doses, exposure times, and testing ages on acquisition during the MWM (An & Zhang, 2013; Dursun, Jakubowska-Doğru, & Uzbay, 2006; Gianoulakis, 1990; Girard, Xing, Ward, & Wainwright, 2000; Goodlett & Johnson, 1997; Means, Russ, Medlin, & Gray, 1986; Wagner, Zhou, & Goodlett, 2014; Wozniak et al, 2004). However, moderate doses, particularly during gestation, do not reliably impact learning and memory in either the MWM or Y-maze task (Cullen, Burne, Lavidis, & Moritz, 2014; Hamilton et al, 2014; Sanchez Vega, Chong, & Burne, 2013). However, with increasing demands on memory processes, rodents with only moderate PAE are revealed to have deficits in spatial memory (Brady, Allan, & Caldwell, 2012; Savage et al, 2010).…”

“…The majority of rodent studies show that aggressive play is decreased in adolescent and adult males across PAE exposures (Charles Lawrence, Cale Bonner, Newson, & Kelly, 2008; Kelly & Dillingham, 1994; Lugo, Marino, Cronise, & Kelly, 2003; Meyer & Riley, 1986; Wellmann et al, 2015). However, some studies have shown increases in wrestling behaviors in males (Hamilton et al, 2010, 2014; Royalty, 1990). The reason for the different outcome is difficult to determine as similar paradigms, BAC, and age at testing have shown conflicting results.…”

“…Behavioral flexibility has most widely been assessed in rodents using reversal-learning tasks that require a subject to first learn a stimulus-reward association, then, once the behavior is well-established, switch the reward association. It is well established that in spatial-reversal tasks (Y-maze, T-maze, MWM), rodents show impairment on reversal, even when there are no effects on acquisition of the initial spatial discrimination in both high- and moderate-dose paradigms (An & Zhang, 2013; Hamilton et al, 2014; Lee & Rabe, 1999; Riley, Lochry, Shapiro, & Baldwin, 1979; Thomas, Garrison, & O’Neill, 2004; Wainwright et al, 1990). Recently we have shown that reversal impairments are not confined to spatial learning, as a moderate exposure during the first two trimesters impairs reversal of visual stimuli in a touch-screen operant task (Marquadt, Sigdel, Caldwell, & Brigman, 2014).…”

Effects of sex and housing on social, spatial, and motor behavior in adult rats exposed to moderate levels of alcohol during prenatal development

“…The procedures for housing, data collection, and quantification of social behavior have been described elsewhere [19, 20, 24]. Cagemate pairs were placed into a box (95 cm × 47 cm × 43 cm) with a Plexiglass front, opaque sides, and a mirrored back wall for 30 minutes on each of three consecutive days to habituate them to the apparatus.…”

“…Because our prior report was limited to male rats, the present study also examined potential sex differences in the effects of moderate PAE and social experience on behavioral outcomes. Offspring of rat dams that voluntarily consumed moderate levels of alcohol throughout pregnancy [24] were pair-housed with a same-sex cage-mate from either the same prenatal treatment condition (PAE or saccharin) or from the opposite condition (mixed housing) until behavioral testing in adulthood. Social behavior, tongue protrusion (TP), and spatial response perseveration errors were quantified as described in [20].…”