Ricceri L, Scattoni ML, Cutuli D, Calamandrei G (2004) Effects of neonatal cholinergic lesions on fear conditioning in 18-day-old rats. Neuroscience 2004 Abstracts 436.9. Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA.
Summary: We have previously shown that neonatal intracerebroventricular (icv) injections of the selective cholinergic immunotoxin 192 IgG-saporin on postnatal day (pnd) 7 induces behavioural alterations already detectable in the third postnatal week. In the present study we injected 192 IgG-saporin icv, in the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (nbm) or in the medial septum (ms) in 7-day-old rats and we then analysed fear conditioning on pnd 18. Fear conditioning to both auditory cue and environmental context was evident in both control and lesioned rats on pnd 18. However, conditioning to the environmental context (measured by freezing duration) was significantly more marked in icv and MS lesioned rats, whereas no effect of the cholinergic lesion was evident on conditioning to the auditory cue. These results suggest that neonatal removal of the cholinergic input to the hippocampal region paradoxically facilitates processing of spatial information in young rats.
Related Products: 192-IgG-SAP (Cat. #IT-01)