2011). It has also been reported that there are differences in the effects of exposure to BPA between boys and girls (Braun et al. 2011; Perera et al. 2012). Recently, the IntelliCage (a fully automated behavioral phenotyping device) has been utilized in the evaluation of the behavior of laboratory animals in order to eliminate human interference (Krackow et al. 2010; Endo Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical et al. 2011). In addition to eliminating human interference, the use of an IntelliCage can be advantageous in the assessment of long-term spontaneous behavior of group-housed animals. In this study, we attempted to address the

questions of how prenatal and neonatal exposure to BPA affects nonsexual behavior, including social behavior and preference formation. In order to achieve our study goals, we orally administered BPA to dams during pregnancy and lactation, and thereafter we evaluated various indices of group-housed Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical offspring with an IntelliCage. Materials and Methods Animals and treatments C57BL/6J

mice (CLEA Japan, Tokyo, Japan) were housed in a Cell Cycle inhibitor controlled temperature (24°C), lighting (12-h light/dark cycle), and humidity (40–60% RH) environment with free access to food and water. All the animal studies were approved by the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Institutional Review Board for Biomedical Research using Laboratory Animals at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, and the animals were handled in accordance with the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical institutional guidelines and regulations. Adult females were mated and the morning when a vaginal plug was observed was designated embryonic day 0 (E0). The dams were dosed daily by feeding tube with 500 μg/kg body weight/day of BPA (Wako, Osaka, Japan) dissolved in 0.01% ethanol for the BPA-exposure group (BPA group) or the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical same amount of 0.01% ethanol for the vehicle control group (control group) from E0 to 3 weeks after delivery. The dosage 500 μg/kg body weight/day of BPA is 100

times less than the no observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL; 50 mg/kg/day). The offspring were weaned at postnatal week three (P3W) and housed separately for each sex (2–5 mice in each cage) until P11W for the females or P13W for the males. All animals were fed standard rodent diet CE-2 (CLEA Japan, Tokyo, Japan) upon arrival and for the duration of crotamiton the experiment. We prepared three separate animal groups, two control groups and one BPA-exposure group. In the first control cohorts, eight female and eight male pups were randomly chosen from three dams avoiding pups of extremely low or high body weight. In the second control cohorts, eight female pups were randomly chosen from five dams and eight male pups were chosen from four dams. BPA cohorts had six dams. Eight female pups were randomly chosen from four dams and eight male pups were chosen from five dams.