<p> Alcoholism and alcohol use disorders are a major problem worldwide. Excessive alcohol consumption has been associated with cognitive impairment not only in drinkers but also in their offspring. Previous clinical reports have suggested that inherited drug use behavior in individuals, including the overall amount of alcohol consumed, originates from parents who engage in the consumption of alcohol both during and prior to conception. For example, mothers exposed to alcohol during pregnancy have been shown to produce offspring with neurodevelopmental, physiological, and behavioral deficits, in rodents. Additionally, several studies now support the idea that fathers exposed to alcohol prior to mating produce male offspring with developmental, physiological, and cognitive deficits as well. With this said, alcohol exposed fathers appear to pass different phenotypes to their sons than they do their daughters. To date, little research has been dedicated to examining cognitive deficits associated with paternal alcohol exposure or the volume of alcohol intake in daughters of male alcoholics. The purpose of this set of experiments is to explore possible changes in cognitive function and alcohol acceptance in both male and female offspring of alcohol-exposed fathers. Adult male rats were exposed to a repeated binge dose of alcohol and later mated with non-manipulated females. Offspring of exposed fathers were assessed for levels of alcohol consumption via Intraoral Cannulation, followed by a series of cognitive function tests via T-maze task performance. Accuracy percentage within the T- maze and volume of alcohol accepted were compared and analyzed using an ANOVA. Our findings suggest that paternal binge doses of ethanol exposure prior to breeding results in offspring that consume significantly more ethanol than controls, exhibit greater latency time to reach criterion in a T-maze, and having significantly fewer percent correct responses in T-maze task performance when including all trials. The results presented here add to the growing body of literature aimed at understanding the consequences of paternal pre-conception ethanol exposure and the effects on subsequent generations.</p><p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10688297 |
| Date | 14 March 2018 |
| Creators | Pappas, Jessica |
| Publisher | Southern Connecticut State University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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