Neurochemical Correlates of Learning Impairment in Microen‐cephalic Rats Induced by Methylazoxymethanol Acetate *

Abstract

ABSTRACTNewborn infants with histogenetic brain malformations can be long‐lived with mental retardation, which is considered a major problem in social medicine. Among these infants with mental retardation, many cases are accompanied by microencephaly. Experimentally induced microencephaly in rats presents a useful model for understanding human cerebral disorders. We have studied how neurochemical changes in the brains of microencephalic rats induced by prenatal treatment with methylazoxymethanol acetate (MAM) can affect their learning abilities. We reported that densities of monoaminergic transmitters in the atrophic cerebral hemisphere (CH; consisting of cerebral cortex and hippocampus) of MAM rats was markedly elevated, but that their total quantity per CH unchanged. As for the ability of operant discrimination learning, MAM rats could discriminate tasks. However, excitatory amino acid receptors, in which N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate (NMDA) is well known to be involved in spatial memory, showed decreased total binding in the CH of MAM‐treated rats. Spatial recognition ability evaluated using an 8‐armed radial maze task was impaired. These results suggest that the condensation of monoaminergic terminals in the atrophic CH of MAM rats may compensate for disability in discrimination learning, but the significant reduction of NMDA receptors may impair spatial memory in MAM rats.