Journal
BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 121, Issue 6, Pages 1293-1305Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/0735-7044.121.6.1293
Keywords
fetal ethanol exposure; optical recordings; whole-body plethysmography; ethanol odor preference; olfactory plasticity
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Funding
- NIAAA NIH HHS [R01 AA015992-02, R01 AA015992, R01 AA014871, AA014871] Funding Source: Medline
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Human fetal ethanol exposure is strongly associated with ethanol avidity during adolescence. Evidence that intrauterine olfactory experience influences chemosensory-guided postnatal behaviors suggests that an altered response to ethanol odor resulting from fetal exposure may contribute to later abuse risk. Using behavioral and neurophysiological methods, the authors tested whether ethanol exposure via the dam's diet resulted in an altered responsiveness to ethanol odor in infant and adult rats. Compared with controls, (a) fetal exposure tuned the neurophysiologic response of the olfactory epithelium to ethanol odor at some expense to its responsiveness to other odorants in infantile rats-this effect was absent in adults; (b) the neural effect in infantile rats was paralleled by an altered behavioral response to ethanol odor that was specific to this odorant-this effect was also absent in adults; and (c) a significant component of the infantile behavioral effect was attributable to ethanol's effect on the olfactory neural modality. These data provide evidence for an important relationship between prenatal ethanol experience and postnatal behavioral responsiveness to the drug that is modulated or determined by olfactory function.
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