Chronic neonatal organotin exposure alters radial-arm maze performance in adult rats.

Long-Evans rats were intubated with 0.3 or 1.0 mg/kg of triethyltin sulfate (TET) or 0.3 mg/kg of trimethyltin hydroxide (TMT) from postnatal day 3-29. 1.0 mg/kg of TMT was given on alternate days beginning on postnatal day 3. Learning and memory were assessed in an automated radial-arm maze when the rats were 180-200 days old. With this maze accuracy and activity data can be collected simultaneously. TET or TMT treatment resulted in an increase in the number of days required to adequately perform and radial-arm maze task, and a transient deficit in accuracy. However, the most pronounced effect in both TET and TMT-treated animals was hyperactivity which became manifest on the second day of testing and persisted throughout the remainder of testing.