Prenatal betamethasone exposure has sex specific effects in reversal learning and attention in juvenile baboons

OBJECTIVE: We investigated effects of 3 weekly courses of fetal betamethasone (beta M) on motivation and cognition in juvenile baboon offspring utilizing the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery. STUDY DESIGN: Pregnant baboons (Papio species) received 2 injections of saline control or 175 mu g/kg beta M 24 hours apart at 0.6, 0.65, and 0.7 gestation. Offspring (saline control female, n = 7 and saline control male, n = 6; beta M female [F beta M], n = 7 and beta M male [M beta M], n = 5) were studied at 2.6-3.2 years with a progressive ratio test for motivation, simple discriminations and reversals for associative learning and rule change plasticity, and an intra/extradimensional set-shifting test for attention allocation. RESULTS: beta M exposure decreased motivation in both sexes. In intra/extradimensional testing, F beta M made more errors in the simple discrimination reversal (mean difference of errors [F beta M - M beta M] = 20.2 +/- 9.9; P <= .05), compound discrimination (mean difference of errors = 36.3 +/- 17.4; P <= .05), and compound reversal (mean difference of errors = 58 +/- 23.6; P < .05) stages as compared to the M beta M offspring. CONCLUSION: This central nervous system developmental programming adds growing concerns of long-term effects of repeated fetal synthetic glucocorticoid exposure. In summary, behavioral effects observed show sex-specific differences in resilience to multiple fetal beta M exposures.