Consequences of early postnatal benzodiazepines exposure in rats. II. Social behavior

Social behavior represents an integral part of behavioral repertoire of rats particularly sensitive to pharmacological and environmental influences. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether early postnatal clonazepam (CZP) exposure can induce age-dependent changes related to expressio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience 2014-05, Vol.8, p.169-169
Main Authors: Mikulecká, Anna, Subrt, Martin, Pařízková, Martina, Mareš, Pavel, Kubová, Hana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescents
Adults
Age
Anxiety
Behavior
Benzodiazepines
Binding sites
Brain
Child development
Clonazepam
Cognitive ability
Convulsions & seizures
development
Drug dosages
Familiarity
Laboratory animals
Neuroscience
Neurosciences
Physiology
Rats
Rodents
Social Behavior
Weaning
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Summary:Social behavior represents an integral part of behavioral repertoire of rats particularly sensitive to pharmacological and environmental influences. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether early postnatal clonazepam (CZP) exposure can induce age-dependent changes related to expression of social behavior. The drug was administered from postnatal day (P) 7 until P11 at daily doses of 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg i.p. We designed three experiments to assess whether exposure to CZP affects social behavior in respect to the age of rats and the test circumstances, specifically their familiarity with test conditions during adolescence (P32), social behavior in juveniles and adolescents (P18-P42) and social behavior in a resident-intruder paradigm. The frequency and duration of a various patterns of social behavior related to play and social investigation not related to play were evaluated. The results showed that CZP postnatal exposure decreased social play behavior regardless of age and familiarity or unfamiliarity of experimental environment but did not affect the social investigation per se. When rats were confronted with an intruder in their home cages intense wrestling and inhibition of genital investigation were found. In conclusion, these findings show that short-term CZP postnatal exposure inhibits social play behavior and alters specific patterns of social behavior in an age and environment related manner.
ISSN:1662-5153
1662-5153
DOI:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00169