Ethological Approaches in Pharmacology

The experimental findings presented provide insight §into the evaluation of behavioral effects, an §important component for in vivo screening of drugs §or toxic compounds in experimental animals.§In the first set of experiments, we studied the §effect of chronic intrauterine hypoxia produced by §phenytoin on pre- and postnatal development of the §rat offspring. Surprisingly, we found that high §doses of VitE in pregnancy, which should be §protective, appear to involve a risk to the §developing rat fetus.§In the second set of experiments, we studied §behavioral changes after AChE inhibition. Subchronic §exposure to low-levels of sarin combined with §chronic shaker stress caused delayed changes in §behavioral and endocrine parameters.§With the methods presented in this book we were able §to detect an embryo-fetal toxic potential of PHT and §to point out the risk of prenatal supplementation §with high doses of VitE to the developing rat fetus. §The behavioral methods also enabled us to detect §late consequences of exposure to anti-ChE, and §particularly to sarin in combination with stress, §providing a possible model of Gulf War Syndrome.