Alcohol-use disorders affect 15 million people nationwide, 4% of which are adolescents (12-17). Clinical data indicate that adolescents who binge drink greatly increase their likelihood of developing an alcohol-use disorder later in life. Moreover, research indicates that binge-drinking during adolescence produces long-lasting alterations in brain circuitry that underlie the processing of rewarding stimuli. The current study sought to determine the effect of adolescent exposure to chronic intermittent ethanol (AIE) on the consumption of, and motivation to obtain, sucrose solution in adulthood. Alcohol naïve, male Wistar rats arrived at the laboratory on post-natal day (PND) 25 and were randomly divided into two exposure groups (AIE and Air). Animals were provided 3 days to allow for acclimation to the animal colony, prior to the start or experimental procedure (PND 28). The AIE procedure involves inducing alcohol dependence by placing rats, in their home cage, into an alcohol vapor chamber for 14 consecutive days, with each exposure day consisting of 12 hrs of exposure in the chambers (8 am to 8 pm) and 12 hrs out of the chambers. The control rats (Air) are treated the same as AIE rats but without exposure to ethanol vapors. Following the AIE paradigm, all rats remained in their home-cage until adulthood (>PND 70) at which time they started operant training/testing in standard operant chambers equipped with two sipper tubes connected via tubing to liquid delivery solenoids. When the response requirement (# of licks) was met, animals received a delivery of 0.1 ml of 5% sucrose solution. All animals were instrumented to the operant procedure on a fixed-ratio (FR) 2 schedule which increased to an FR4 then FR8. Finally, all rats underwent a progressive ratio test in which response requirement increased exponentially for each liquid delivery. On lower schedules (FR2 and FR4) animals did not exhibit a significant difference in licks or reinforcers earned. However, for higher schedules (FR8 and PR) animals in the Air group exhibited a significantly higher level of behavior (licks) and received a significantly greater number of reinforcers than the AIE group. Overall, the data suggest that exposure to AIE, which approximates binge-like EtOH intake and dependence, differentially affects consumatory and appetitive behavior in response to a non-drug reward in adulthood.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:asrf-2182 |
| Date | 25 April 2023 |
| Creators | Inscore, Phylicia, Marks, Caleb, Patel, Dhara, Nathan, Karuna, Wilkins, Madison, Limprevil, Taylor, Majors, Chloe, Gass, Justin, Deehan, Gerald, Jr |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Appalachian Student Research Forum |
Page generated in 0.0032 seconds