The endocrine disruptor Bisphenol-A (BPA) interferes with social recognition ability in rats

Bisphenol-A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor compound (EDC), is found in many polycarbonate plastics, food/beverage containers, and cigarette smoke filters and has been proposed to be a potential risk to public health. BPA is one of the world’s highest-production volume chemicals. Studies on EDCs have primarily focused on the reproductive and thyroid systems. For example, reports indicate that BPA has estrogenic and anti-estrogenic actions resulting in altered reproductive development and function. BPA can also increase anxiety and reduce the behavioral response to novelty in a sex-dependent manner. BPA also advances the timing of puberty. Little is known about the effect of BPA on other central peptides such as vasopressin (VP) that are critical for social and reproductive behaviors. BPA may act by interfering with the central VP system, which is important in social memory. Here we explored the impacts of a human-relevant exposure to BPA by testing social memory using a social recognition test (SRT). We hypothesized that low dose BPA exposure during critical periods of hypothalamic organization would result in impairment in social recognition ability. Using BPA-exposed rats from the lab of Dr. Heather Patisaul (North Carolina State University) we found that there is significant impairment in social recognition ability. In addition, SRT was performed on mice exposed to third hand smoke (THS), which may contain BPA, in order to compare phenotypes associated with THS and BPA exposure.