Developmental treatment with difluoromethylornithine has few effects on behavior or body weight in Sprague–Dawley rats

• Published in: Neurotoxicology and teratology 2004-01, Vol.26 (1), p.83-93
• Main Authors: Ferguson, Sherry A, Cada, Amy M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age Factors; Animals; Animals, Newborn; Behavior; Behavior, Animal - drug effects; Body Weight - drug effects; Brain - drug effects; Brain - growth & development; DFMO; Dominance-Subordination; Eating - drug effects; Eflornithine - pharmacology; Enzyme Inhibitors - pharmacology; Exploratory Behavior - drug effects; Eye - drug effects; Eye - growth & development; Female; Forelimb - drug effects; Forelimb - growth & development; Inhibition (Psychology); Male; Maze Learning - drug effects; Motor Activity - drug effects; Postural Balance - drug effects; Pregnancy; Psychomotor Performance - drug effects; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Reaction Time - drug effects; Reflex, Acoustic - drug effects; Saccharin; Sex Factors; Social Behavior; Treatment
• ISSN: 0892-0362; 1872-9738
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ntt.2003.08.001

Developmental difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) treatment reduces cerebellar weight [Neuroscience 17 (1986) 399, Neurotoxicol. Teratol. 22 (2000) 415, Behav. Brain Res. 126 (2001) 135], but the functional alterations resulting from this have been little investigated. Here, Sprague–Dawley rats were subcutaneously injected with 500 mg/kg DFMO on postnatal days (PNDs) 5–12 and a comprehensive set of behavioral assessments measured early developmental behaviors (righting reflex, negative geotaxis), motor coordination, acoustic startle, short- and long-term activity, social behaviors, anxiety, and spatial learning and memory. DFMO treatment appeared to cause a decreased latency to perform the negative geotaxis behavior on PNDs 8–10 and increased latency to hang by the forelimbs on PNDs 12–14. Our previous study did not indicate similar effects, but age at testing differed between the two studies. DFMO treatment caused a decreased latency to maximum acoustic startle response in both the acoustic startle paradigm and in the pulse-alone trials of the prepulse inhibition test. This DFMO treatment paradigm induced a 10% decrease in adult cerebellar weight [Behav. Brain Res. 126 (2001) 135], but the results here imply that such developmental stunting has few functional alterations.