Abstract
Clinical and experimental reports suggest that prenatal cocaine exposure (PCE) alters the offsprings’ social interactions with caregivers and conspecifics. Children exposed to prenatal cocaine show deficits in caregiver attachment and play behavior. In animal models, a developmental pattern of effects that range from deficits in play and social interaction during adolescence, to aggressive reactions during competition in adulthood is seen. This review will focus primarily on the effects of PCE on social behaviors involving conspecifics in animal models. Social relationships are critical to the developing organism; maternally directed interactions are necessary for initial survival. Juvenile rats deprived of play behavior, one of the earliest forms of non-mother directed social behaviors in rodents, show deficits in learning tasks and sexual competence. Social behavior is inherently complex. Because the emergence of appropriate social skills involves the interplay between various conceptual and biological facets of behavior and social information, it may be a particularly sensitive measure of prenatal insult. The social behavior surveyed include social interactions, play behavior/fighting, scent marking, and aggressive behavior in the offspring, as well as aspects of maternal behavior. The goal is to determine if there is a consensus of results in the literature with respect to PCE and social behaviors, and to discuss discrepant findings in terms of exposure models, the paradigms, and dependent variables, as well as housing conditions, and the sex and age of the offspring at testing. As there is increasing evidence that deficits in social behavior may be sequelae of developmental exposure alcohol, we compare changes in social behaviors reported for prenatal alcohol with those reported for prenatal cocaine. Shortcomings in the both literatures are identified and addressed in an effort to improve the translational value of future experimentation.
Highlights
DEVELOPMENTAL ETHANOL EXPOSURE IN ANIMALS We have identified 19 published peer-reviewed studies that have investigated a range of social behaviors following developmental exposure, i.e., gestational, postnatal, or combined exposure to ethanol
Summary Overall, 11 studies reported no effects of developmental ethanol exposure, 9 found increases and 13 found reductions or impairment of some measure of social behavior (Table 3)
These results do not appear to differ by sex, age at exposure or species, nor did any one type of social behavior stand out as producing a clear developmental ethanol behavioral effect in a single direction
Summary
Interacting with one’s own infant is reported to be a rewarding and pleasurable experience This behavior promotes maternal– infant attachments, which ensures optimal care for the developing infant in the face of competing demands (Strathearn et al, 2008). Social play is rewarding and serves as a natural reinforcer that is crucial for the development of behavioral flexibility, the acquisition of social communication and cognitive competence, and may function to establish social organization and maintain cohesion in a group, or facilitate the ability to cope with social conflicts (Thor and Holloway, 1984; Pellis and Pellis, 1998; Auger and Olesen, 2009; Trezza et al, 2010). In general social play behaviors facilitate different aspects of social development which contribute to the acquisition of adaptive social functioning in adulthood (Thor and Holloway, 1984)
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