Methods in Behavioral Teratology Screening: Current Status and New Developments

Abstract

Abstract In 1975 our laboratory began developing a behavioral teratology screening test battery suitable for use in preclinical safety assessment experiments with rats. The battery involved assessment of physical milestones of development, sensorimotor reflex ontogeny, pre‐ and postweaning locomotor activity, motor coordination, and tests of learning and memory. Although some of the specific procedures were new, the tests themselves were drawn from the experimental animal psychology, undernutrition, psychopharmacology, and developmental X‐ray literatures. The features which distinguished this approach from the past were not to be found in the tests employed, but rather from (1) the effort to objectify and standardize the tests to make them better suited as screening instruments and (2) the evaluation of them collectively and individually for reliability and validity. Reliability was ascertained by replication and validity by evaluation of positive and presumptively negative control test agents. The present paper reviews the rationale for the test battery and some of the positive effects that have been detected with the individual tests. New tests added to and old tests modified in the battery are discussed in the light of the recommendations which have come from the recently completed U.S. Collaborative Behavioral Teratology Study. Particular emphasis is placed on a discussion of the Biel water maze as a test that has been perhaps the most successful instrument for identifying behavioral teratogens to come out of the Cincinnati research effort.