Prenatal exposure to alcohol can produce Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Alcohol-Related Birth Defects (ARBDs) which are associated with cognitive disabilities and mental retardation. this component of the Fetal Alcohol Research Center proposal will be one of the first studies to systematically examine the possibility that some of these ARBDs can be ameliorated by postnatal manipulations. This project will test the ability of postnatal environmental enrichment to ameliorate prenatal alcohol-induced behavioral dysfunction and brain anomalies in animals. The strategy is to rear prenatal alcohol-exposed rats in various postnatal environments that differ in social interactions, sensory stimulation, and opportunities for motor behaviors. The more enriched environments are designed to help stimulate development of the animals' motor and cognitive abilities, even though those abilities are compromised by prenatal alcohol exposure. We hypothesize that postnatal environmental enrichment will ameliorate prenatal alcohol-induced disruptions in behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy. The project will focus on the neurobiology of the hippocampus because this brain area is particularly sensitive to alcohol; because hippocampal dysfunction may underlie some behavioral deficits following prenatal alcohol exposure; and because hippocampal function and anatomy are known to be responsive to postnatal environmental enrichment. We will integrate behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroanatomical methods to study the impact of various characteristics of environmental enrichment (e.g., social housing, handling, sensory stimulation -- as well as sensitive periods for and persistence of enrichment effects), on dose-, age- and gender- dependent fetal alcohol effects.
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