Paradoxical effects of alcohol and thiamine deficiency on the eye opening in rat pups.

Objective: The present study attempts to determine whether developmental thiamine (B1 vitamin) deficiency and developmental ethanol exposure disturb eye opening in Wistar rat pups. Methods: During gestation and lactation, Wistar rat dams were exposed to the following treatments: (1) Prenatal thiamine-deficient dams; (2) perinatal thiamine-deficient dams; (3) postnatal thiamine-deficient dams; (4) 12% alcohol/water drinking mothers; (5) mothers drinking 12% alcohol/water + thiamine hydrochloride mixture; (6) ad libitum control dams. Pair-feeding treatments controlled malnutrition related to thiamine deficiency: (7) Prenatal pair-fed dams; (8) perinatal pair-fed dams; (9) postnatal pair-fed dams and included also the control of alcohol consummation: (10) pair-fed saccharose dams. After birth, from postnatal day 10 (P10) to P18, eye opening was observed in the pups bred by ten different experimental dams. Results: The present experiments showed eye opening to be delayed strongly in perinatal thiamine-deficie...