AUDITORY-DISCRIMINATION REVERSAL-LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT OF BEHAVIORAL TERATOGENESIS IN RATS

Qualitative auditory discrimination procedures were used to evaluate d iscrimination acquisition and reversal learning in rats. Twelve adult rats prenatally exposed to ethanol (ETOH) and 12 unexposed isocaloric controls (CON) were given training with a positively reinforced succes sive discrimination procedure. Most ETOH subjects were impaired relati ve to CON subjects on accuracy during early training sessions and the number of sessions required to meet an 80% accuracy criterion. Some ET OH subjects were also impaired on the rate of learning over a series o f repeated discrimination reversals. Individual differences in reversa l learning rates varied more widely with ETOH subjects than with CON s ubjects. Our results indicate that the auditory discrimination procedu res may find application in assessments of behavioral teratogenesis.