ABSTRACT

This chapter reports on an animal model for the small-for-gestational-age infant. This infant is defined in the human clinical literature as one who is full term but underweight, falling in the weight range of 1700-2500 grams. In the Laboratory of Developmental Psychobiology of the Department of Biobehavioral Sciences, the authors have initiated a program to develop animal models of several human perinatal and neonatal events. In Experiment 1 the Days 18 and 19 pups from the ligated horn weighed 4.30 gm, while the controls averaged 5.96 gm, a loss of 28%. In Experiment 3 the pups from the ligation groups weighed 18% less than control pups. These significant weight losses establish that the ligation procedure is able to produce smaller liveborn young, the first requisite for a small-for-gestational-age animal model. In conclusion, the authors feel that the ligation procedure for generating "small-for-gestational-age" animals is yielding interesting behavioral and morphological data.