ArticlesBehavioral Alterations Induced in Rats by a Pre- and Postnatal Exposure to 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid
Section snippets
Animals and Exposure to 2,4-D
Nulliparous female Wistar rats, approximately 3 months of age, were separately placed with fertile males on the proestrus night, and the presence of spermatozoa was checked in the vaginal smear the following morning. This day was denoted as gestation day 0 (GD 0). At this time, pregnant females were individually housed in plastic breeding cages in a temperature-controlled nursery (22–24°C) and maintained on a 12-h light/dark cycle. Food and water were available ad lib. In GD 16, the pregnant
Animal Weights and Physical Landmarks
Maternal exposure to 70 mg/kg/day 2,4-D had no effect on maternal body weight gain during gestation or lactation, on the number of pups born or on postnatal mortality. Further, no measurable effects of 2,4-D exposure during pregnancy and lactation on maternal nesting behavior were detected (data not shown). However, there was a significant main effect for exposure on pup weight (Fig. 1). Significant reductions in weight gain were observed from PND 7 to PND 23 in 2,4-D–exposed pups of both sexes
Discussion
Although the nonobserved adverse-effect level (NOAEL) for chronic dietary neurotoxicity was considered to be only the retinal degeneration and increased relative forelimb grip strength in rats for 75 mg/kg/day for 2,4-D (32), our present results indicate that pre- and postnatal exposure to about 70 mg/kg/day 2,4-D modifies the behavioral pattern in developing, young, and adult rats. The observed behavioral alterations were not accompanied by external signs of overt toxicity such as changes on
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientı́fı́cas y Técnicas (CONICET), Argentina to Ana Marı́a Evangelista de Duffard. The authors thank Aurelia Vicens de Robson for linguistic assistance.
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