Abstract
Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the studies, focusing on mental retardation in animals. The absence of a conceptual model of mental retardation from a comparative perspective was and is the major stumbling block to effective research on behavioral retardation— that is, learning deficits in nonhuman animal experimental subjects. A reconsideration of the studies cited, with their procedural strengths and weaknesses and with their findings of statistically significant or nonsignificant differences in behavior in the experimental and control groups, suggests an equally serious deterrent to effective comparative research in this domain. The more recent trend in genetics-intelligence research has been with recognized breeds or strains of mammals, notably mice, rats, and dogs. In mouse studies, clearly the most numerous, marked strain differences in learning performance have been reported on a variety of tasks and learning conditions. This chapter describes the concepts related to prenatal factors, including hypoxia, ionizing radiation, drugs, nutrition, and maternal emotion. Perinatal factors are also discussed in the chapter. A discussion on the postnatal factors, including hyperoxia, infantile brain damage, early experience, drugs, and nutrition is also described in this chapter.
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