Twenty-seven male, Long–Evans rats, 3.5 to 4.5 months of age at the start of the treatment schedule were used. The animals were divided into three groups (nine rats/group) and individually housed throughout the experiment. All subjects were from a stock colony at Binghamton University and maintained on a 12:12 h light:dark schedule. Food was provided ad libitum except when testing was conducted in a behavioral task that required food deprivation. During such periods, food was removed from the cages for 18–20 h prior to testing (weeks 24 to 27). Water was available ad libitum. Prior to the beginning of treatment, animals had access to tap water which had non-detectable <50 ppb Al levels. Depending on group assignment, treatment consisted of double-distilled drinking water (ddw) buffered to a pH of 7.0, 0.5 ppm AlF3 in ddw or 2.1 ppm NaF, with the latter two treatments having the same F molar concentration (see Section 2.2). Exposure to the treated water continued for 52 weeks. Body weights were recorded weekly for the first 10 weeks and then biweekly throughout the remainder of the experiment.