Important hints in behavioural teratology of rodents

The paper deals with the most important items regarding the improvement of quality of experimental procedures when testing drug effects on behaviour a nd development of commonly-used rodent species. Current-used test procedure s for immature and adult rodents exposed early developmentally are briefly described and recent advances and difficulties in their hands-on interpreta tion are highlighted. Comparability of measures in human and animals for dr ug-effect assessment is also shortly discussed. It is then stressed that st udies on I rodents carried out in seminaturalistic and naturalistic setting s may offer a highly profitable direction for future research in behavioura l teratology and toxicology. A final paragraph is dedicated to the bioethic al aspects arisen from the use of large number of rodents subjects in behav ioural testing.