Enduring Effects of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure on Selective Attention and Reactivity to Errors: Evidence From an Animal Model

• Published in: Behavioral neuroscience 2004-04, Vol.118 (2), p.290-297
• Main Authors: Gendle, Mathew H, White, Tara L, Strawderman, Myla, Mactutus, Charles F, Booze, Rosemarie M, Levitsky, David A, Strupp, Barbara J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Activity levels. Psychomotricity; Animal; Animal behavior; Animal Models; Animals; Animals, Newborn; Attention - physiology; Behavior, Animal; Biological and medical sciences; Cocaine; Cocaine - administration & dosage; Cocaine - adverse effects; Errors; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Injections; Male; Motivation; Neurology; Pregnancy; Prenatal development; Prenatal Exposure; Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychomotor activities; Random Allocation; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Rodents; Selective Attention; Smell; Vigilance. Attention. Sleep
• ISSN: 0735-7044; 1939-0084
• DOI: 10.1037/0735-7044.118.2.290

Adult Long-Evans rats, exposed prenatally to 1 of 4 doses of cocaine (0.0, 0.5, 1.0, or 3.0 mg/kg iv), were tested on a 3-choice visual attention task with an olfactory distractor presented unpredictably on one third of the trials. The performance of all 3 cocaine-exposed groups was significantly more disrupted than that of controls by the presentation of distractors. Results demonstrate that prenatal cocaine exposure increases susceptibility to distractors, using a task specifically designed to measure this function. In addition, the present study revealed that individuals exposed to cocaine in utero exhibit greater performance disruption after an error than controls, in certain types of tasks. Both areas of dysfunction, impaired selective attention and impaired arousal regulation, have important functional consequences in humans, possibly affecting the school performance and social development of cocaine-exposed children.