A follow-up study of perinatally hypoxic rabbits.

Rabbits, surviving a severe 3-hours-lasting hypoxia (FiO2 = 0.05) during the 1st day of life, grew up together with their littermates. In animals aged 10 and 20 days, respectively, the vestibular induced tonic eye deviations were investigated during tilting around the three orthogonal body axes. The spontaneous head-body-motor coordination was analysed by means of a search coil technique in 14 days old rabbits. Perinatally hypoxic rabbits exhibit a compensation of initially reduced torsional tonic eye deviation and an overcompensation of the vertical ones at the 20th postnatal day in comparison to controls. Moreover, we found reduced amplitudes and velocities of spontaneous head saccades in perinatally hypoxic animals 14 days old. We assume a retarded development of the neuronal nets of the brain stem reticular formation in the hypoxic rabbits accompanied by an insufficient visuo-vestibular interaction.