Spatial Memory in Adulthood Rat with Prenatal Hypoxia-Ischaemia

Prenatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI) can cause brain lesions. The effects of HI on neurogenesis during development have been a matter of controversy. HI contributes to cognitive deficite such as spatial memory. Long-term effects of exposure of hypoxia during early intrauterine development very important to investigate. This experimental was aimed to assess spatial memory during adulthood due to HI. Samples were grouped into 6 groups (3 treatment groups and 3 control groups). Pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats underwent unilateral ligation of the uterine artery which supplies one of uterine horns on on pregnancy day 7, 12, and 17 (designated as HI₇ , HI₁₂ , and HI₁₇ groups). Control groups (C₇ , C₁₂ and C₁₇ groups) consisted of sham-operated rats which underwent laparotomy without unilateral ligation of the uterine artery. Rats pups weighed over 5.50 g at birth were excluded from the study. Thirty male rats were then divided into 3 treatment groups and 3 control groups. Spatial memory test were conducted when the rats’ age reached 60 days. The spatial memory test was carried out using Y-maze test and Morris Water Maze (MWM). One-way ANOVA procedure of these data showed a significant main effect of groups in the number and percentage of alternation (p = 0.005; p = 0.001). The post hoc Tukey test revealed that the percentages of alternation of HI7 , HI12, and HI7 groups were lower than those of C₇ , C₁₂ , and HI₁₇ groups (p = 0.002; p = 0.0001; p = 0.019, respectively). Conclusions of this study is that longer HI duration is likely to cause more defect in spatial memory during adulthood.