Behavioral and Biochemical Effects in the Adult Rat After Prolonged Postnatal Administration of Cataleptogenic and Non-cataleptogenic Neuroleptics

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the behavioral and biochemical effects in the adult rat after prolonged postnatal administration of cataleptogenic and noncataleptogenic neuroleptics. Treatment with neuroleptics immediately after birth can lead to enduring behavioral and biochemical changes in the adult rat. Behavior offers a sensitive way to detect functional damage to the central nervous system (CNS). Many neurotoxic agents change normal behavior, often in the absence of morphological alterations demonstrable by techniques utilized in the conventional toxicity studies. In rat, immediately after birth, the blood–brain barrier is absent or incomplete; hence, drugs that cross the barrier with some difficulty where they are given prenatally or early postnatally can elicit neurotoxic effects in doses that are tolerated in the adult rat. It has been reported that prolonged changes in dopamine (DA) receptor binding in striata of pups that have received haloperidol during nursing. However, biochemical studies on the effect of neuroleptic treatment during brain maturation are lacking.