Long-term effects of early undernutrition on reactivity of the rat parietal association cortex

Cortical reactivity of the parietal association area was studied in undernourished rats after short and long rehabilitation periods. Undernutrition was induced during lactation by increasing litter size from 8 to 18 pups per nurse. At either 40 or 100 days of age, cortical chronaxie, and both fatigability and latencies of direct cortical evoked responses were determined. At the two ages, results showed that early postnatal malnutrition induced higher chronaxies, greater fatigability and longer latencies of the responses compared with normal animals, indicating the existence of long-term functional alterations of that cortical area. © 1984