THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS OF COMPLEX MOTOR TRAINING ON MOTOR-PERFORMANCE DEFICITS INDUCED BY NEONATAL BINGE-LIKE ALCOHOL EXPOSURE IN RATS - I - BEHAVIORAL RESULTS

The effects of complex motor task learning on subsequent motor perform ance of adult rats exposed to alcohol on postnatal days ii through 9 w ere studied, Male and female Long-Evans rats were assigned to one of t hree treatments: (1) alcohol exposure (AE.) via artificial rearing to 4.5.g kg(-1) day(-1) of ethanol in a binge-like manner (two consecutiv e feedings), (2) gastrostomy control (GC) fed isocaloric milk formula, via artificial rearing, and (3) suckling control (SC), where pups rem ained with lactating dame. After completion of the treatments, The pup s were fostered back to lactating dams, and after weaning they were ra ised in standard cages (two-three animals per cage) until they were 6 months old. Rats from each of the postnatal treatments then spent 20 d ays in one of three conditions: (1) inactive condition (IC), (2) motor control condition (MC) (running on a fiat oval track), or (3) rehabil itation condition (RC) (learning to traverse a set of 10 elevated obst acles). After that all the animals were tested on three tasks, sensiti ve to balance and coordination deficits (parallel bars, rope climbing and traversing a rotating rod). On parallel bars, both male and female rats demonstrated the same pattern of out-comes: AE-IC rats made sign ificantly more mistakes (slips and falls) than IC rats from both contr ol groups. After 20 days of training in the RC condition, there were n o differences between AE and both SC and CC animals in their ability t o perform an the parallel bars test. On rope climbing, female animals showed a similar pattern of abilities: AE-IC rats were the worst group : exercising did not significantly improve the AE rats' ability to cli mb, whereas Be RC groups (SC, GC and AE) all performed near asymptote and there were no significant differences among three neonatal treatme nt groups. There was a substantial effect of the male rats' heavier bo dy weight on climbing ability, and this may have prevented the deficit s in AE rats behavior from being detected. Nevertheless, male animals from all three postnatal treatments (SC, GC and AE) were significantly better on this task after RC. Female and male rats from all three pos tnatal groups demonstrated significantly better performance on the rot arod task after 20 days of 'rehabilitation', These results suggest tha t complex motor skill learning improves some of the motor performance deficits produced by postnatal exposure to alcohol and can potentially serve as a model for rehabilitative intervention. (C) 1995 Elsevier S cience B.V. All rights reserved.