The study was conducted on 64 CF strain albino rats, which were equally distributed into 8 evenly matched groups following a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design, by varying three independent factors at two levels: nutrition--normal and
undernutrition; environment--enrichment and impoverishment, and
drug treatment--vehicle and
pyritinol (100 mg/kg, ip). Prenatal
undernutrition was induced by restricting the mother's food intake. The environmental enrichment/impoverishment and the vehicle/
pyritinol treatments were given during the postweaning period of the pups. The rats were subjected to original and subsequent reversal brightness discrimination learning tests in a single unit T-maze at 8-9 weeks of age. Thereafter, the animals were tested for the passive avoidance learning. The results indicate that
undernutrition caused significant original discrimination learning deficits whereas environmental deprivation attenuated both the original and reversal learning performance. Environmental impoverishment attenuated the retention of passive avoidance behaviour but
undernutrition had no effect on this paradigm.
Pyritinol treatment improved the learning and retention performance of normally reared rats and also attenuated the original and reversal learning deficits induced by parental
undernutrition and postweaning environmental impoverishment. The results indicate that
pyritinol may be useful in learning and
memory deficits induced by
malnutrition and environmental deprivation.