Introduction. Teratology is the study of abnormalities of physiological development. A wide range of different chemicals and environmental factors are suspected or are known to be teratogenic in humans and in animals. A selected few include: Drugs and medications; Environmental chemicals and Ionizing radiation. Exposure to teratogens can result in a wide range of structural abnormalities. Exposure to a single agent can produce various abnormalities depending on the stage of development it occurs. Zolpidem can affect the developing brain embryo via the activating of the GABA A receptors. However it is used now as a sedative even by the pregnant women. So its effect on embryo is questioned here. Materials and Methods. Female pregnant rats were randomly divided into 4 groups. Control with saline injection intra peritoneal (i.p); Treated with 5, 10, 20 mg/kg, i.p. injection of zolpidem. Zolpidem was injected at 1st post mating day. On 18th day of pregnancy, fetuses were excluded and processed for histological characters and the end data was analyzed. Results. There were differences between control and test group qualitatively but quantitative analysis should be done. Conclusion. Neurotoxicology and Teratology provides a forum for publishing new information regarding the effects of chemical and physical agents on the developing, adult or aging nervous system. GABA A receptors are expressed during development of rat brain nervous system. zolpidem has agonistic effect on this receptors. Based on this fact, zolpidem causes disorder function of this receptor and then in some disorders in the developing fetal brain. As a result of this, there will be some malformation in the rat embryo.

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