Methods: Male rats received sodium fluoride in their drinking water (1 ppm – tap water; 50 ppm; 100 ppm) for 30 days. After this period, different groups of animals were tested in openfield habituation (two 5-min sessions 24 h apart) and in the twoway active avoidance (two sessions of 30 trials with 10-s of tone – conditioned stimulus – and 5-s of 0.3mA shock delivery – unconditioned stimulus – at final 5 s of CS). Food and water intake, body weight gain and dental fluorosis were also

Excerpt:

Methods: Male rats received sodium fluoride in their drinking water (1 ppm – tap water; 50 ppm; 100 ppm) for 30 days. After this period, different groups of animals were tested in openfield habituation (two 5-min sessions 24 h apart) and in the twoway active avoidance (two sessions of 30 trials with 10-s of tone – conditioned stimulus – and 5-s of 0.3mA shock delivery – unconditioned stimulus – at final 5 s of CS). Food and water intake, body weight gain and dental fluorosis were also recorded…

Discussion: Thirty days of sodium fluoride administration to rats induced impairment in habituation and two-way active avoidance. Possible mechanisms of these impairments can be the reduction of some subunits of nicotinic receptors and altered hippocampal calcium current found after chronic NaF treatment (Long et al., 2002). In conclusion, the present study reinforces the clinical impression that sodium fluoride has a potential memory impairment effect, which deserves further studies.