Objective: We offer an overview of ADHD research using mouse models of nicotine exposure. Method: Nicotine exposure of C57BL/6 or Swiss Webster mice occurred during prenatal period only or during the prenatal and the preweaning periods. Behavioral, neuroanatomical and neurotransmitter assays were used to investigate neurobiological mechanisms of…

Pinpointing the precise age when young animals begin to form memories of aversive events is valuable for understanding the onset of anxiety and mood disorders and for detecting early cognitive impairment in models of childhood-onset disorders. Although these disorders are most commonly modeled in mice, we know little regarding the development of…

The concept of fetal programming is based on the idea that the developmental trajectory of infants is adjusted in response to in utero conditions. In species with extended parental care, these prenatally derived tendencies are further substantiated by behavioral attributes of the mother during the postnatal period. We investigated the stability of…

Research has revealed that fetuses can learn from events in their environment. The most convincing evidence for fetal learning is habituation to vibroacoustic stimulation (VAS) in human fetuses and classical conditioning in rat fetuses. However, these two research areas have been independent of each other. There have been few attempts at classical…

We explored the amount and timing of temporal synchrony necessary to facilitate prenatal perceptual learning using an animal model, the bobwhite quail. Quail embryos were exposed to various audiovisual combinations of a bobwhite maternal call paired with patterned light during the late stages of prenatal development and were tested postnatally for…

The authors investigated whether adversity in a female, before she conceives, will influence the affective and social behavior of her progeny. Virgin female rats were either undisturbed (controls) or exposed to varied, unpredictable, stressors for 7 days (preconceptual stress [PCS]) and then either mated immediately after the end of the stress…

The role of sensory feedback in the early ontogeny of motor coordination remains a topic of speculation and debate. On E20 of gestation (the 20th day after conception, 2 days before birth), rat fetuses can alter interlimb coordination after a period of training with an interlimb yoke, which constrains limb movement and promotes synchronized,…

The effects of prenatal choline availability on Pavlovian conditioning were assessed in adult male rats (3-4 mo). Neither supplementation nor deprivation of prenatal choline affected the acquisition and extinction of simple Pavlovian conditioned excitation, or the acquisition and retardation of conditioned inhibition. However, prenatal choline…

Animal models of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) have been used to demonstrate the specificity of alcohol's teratogenic effects and some of the underlying changes in the central nervous system (CNS) and, more recently, to explore ways to ameliorate the effects of alcohol. The main point of this review is to highlight research findings from…

Adult learning and memory functions are strongly dependent on neonatal experiences. We recently showed that neonatal odor-shock learning attenuates later life odor fear conditioning and amygdala activity. In the present work we investigated whether changes observed in adults can also be observed in other structures normally involved, namely…

To test the hypothesis that social rearing may induce malleability, socially reared and socially isolated mallard duck, "Anas platyrhynchos," embryos and hatchlings were exposed to the maternal call of a chicken, "Gallus gallus domesticus," until 48 h after hatching. The hatchlings were then tested with the chicken call versus…

We previously showed that prenatal choline supplementation could increase the precision of timing and temporal memory and facilitate simultaneous temporal processing in mature and aged rats. In the present study, we investigated the ability of adult rats to selectively control the reinforcement-induced resetting of an internal clock as a function…

Operant and classical conditioning are major processes shaping behavioral responses in all animals. Although the understanding of the mechanisms of classical conditioning has expanded significantly, the understanding of the mechanisms of operant conditioning is more limited. Recent developments in "Aplysia" are helping to narrow the gap in the…

Expression of the immediate-early genes (IEGs) has been shown to be induced by activity-dependent synaptic plasticity or behavioral training and is thought to play an important role in long-term memory. In the present study, we examined the induction and expression of the IEG-encoded protein Egr-1 during an in vitro neural correlate of eyeblink…