The interaction between early-life exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate and aging in mice

It has been reported that the exposure to environmental chemicals including endocrine-disrupting chemicals in early life can cause developmental diseases in children. We previously reported that the lactational exposure to perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) caused the impairment in the cognitive and motor functions in adult male mice. However, little is known how the early-life PFOS exposure affects such brain functions in aged subjects. The present study investigated the prolonged effects of PFOS on cognitive function, anxiety, and social behavior using aged male mice (> 365 postnatal day). Mice were exposed to PFOS (1 mg / kg body weight) during the lactational period. In the visual discrimination test, both control and PFOS groups showed a decrease in the learning curve. There is no difference in % correct between groups. In the object location test, there were no changes in both short- and long-term memory. In the object recognition test, long-term memory was attenuated in the PFOS group. The test battery for anxiety (elevated-plus maze test, light and dark chamber test, marble burying test) detected no difference between groups. In the three-chamber social interaction test, PFOS-exposed mice showed an avoidance to interact with a novel mouse, which was not observed during the young-adult period. These results indicate that the PFOS mainly affects social activity during aging. Nothing to disclose This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.