Behavioral consequences of neonatal hypoglycemia in the rhesus monkey: A preliminary report*

Three behavioral tests were conducted on each of two young rhesus monkeys, one of which (Animal 1-80) had 6–12 hr. of symptomatic neonatal hypoglycemia, and the other (Animal 315-80) not more than one hr. Animal 1-80 took considerably longer to adapt to the behavioral test apparatus than either Animal 315-80 or a group of 16 control animals. Animal 1-80 was also much slower than either 315-80 or the control animals at learning two complex visual discrimination tasks, the learning set, and delayed matching to sample tasks. The performance of animal 315-80 was indistinguishable from that of the control animals on all tests. The results suggest long-term effects of prolonged symptomatic neonatal hypoglycemia on aspects of emotional behavior and complex cognitive functions.