Journal
NEUROTOXICOLOGY
Volume 33, Issue 3, Pages 361-369Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuro.2012.02.011
Keywords
Hexachloronaphthalene; Neurobehavioral tests; Repeated exposure; Rat
Categories
Funding
- State Committee for Scientific Research, Poland [3P05D 010 25]
- National Science Centre [NN 404 27 1240]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs), including hexachloronaphthalene (HxCN), are widespread global environmental contaminants. Our experiments were aimed at assessing HxCN effects on motor behavior, long-term memory, pain sensitivity, magnitude of stress-induced analgesia, auditory function and sensorimotor gating, following repeated intragastric administration (28 days) of HxCN at 0.3 and 1.0 mg/kg body weight. Three weeks after the exposure termination, male Wistar rats were subjected to the neurobehavioral tests battery performed in the following order: open-field test, passive avoidance test, hot-plate test and acoustic startle response test. Repeated administration of HxCN induced disorders of motivational processes manifested by: anorectic effect caused by aphagia and adipsia; significantly reduced motor activity (hypokinesia); impaired long-term memory and acquired passive avoidance reaction; reduced pain threshold and shortened duration of anxiety reaction after pain stimulus (sensory neglect). Some of these neurobehavioral effects (impaired long-term memory, reduced pain threshold and stress-induced analgesia) were observed at 0.3 mg HxCN/kg body weight without any signs of overt toxicity. The outcome of our study shows that HxCN, like other compounds of the persistent organic pollutants (POPS) group, creates a potential risk of behavioral changes in the central nervous system in the general population as a result of environmental exposure. (c) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available