Jiping Zhang, Liang Chen, Fei Gao, Qing Pu, Xinde Sun
School of Life Science, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China. jpzhang@bio.ecnu.edu.cn
Physiology & behavior 2008 Sep 3Environment noise is ubiquitous in our daily life. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of postnatal exposure to moderate-level noise on the auditory object exploration behavior of adult rats by comparing the ability of three groups of rats to locate a sound source in a water maze. Two groups of rats, either in the critical period of hearing development or in adulthood, were exposed to 80 dB SPL interrupted white noise for 8 h per day for two weeks. The control group of rats was not exposed to the noise. The ability of the rats to locate a hidden platform that was situated near a sound source in a water maze was tested starting on postnatal day 77. A continuous improvement in the performance of control rats and rats exposed to noise in adulthood was observed during training, whereas rats exposed to noise at a young age exhibited a significantly worse performance. These findings indicated that long-term exposure of young rats to moderate-level noise caused significant impairment of their auditory object exploration behavior compared to exposure of adult animals to the same moderate-level noise.
Jiping Zhang, Liang Chen, Fei Gao, Qing Pu, Xinde Sun. Noise exposure at young age impairs the auditory object exploration behavior of rats in adulthood. Physiology & behavior. 2008 Sep 3;95(1-2):229-34
PMID: 18598709
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