DISRUPTION OF FEAR MEMORY RECONSOLIDATION IN ETHANOL WITHDRAWN RATS BY D-CYCLOSERINE/BEER TREATMENT

V. ORTIZ, V.A. MOLINA, I.D. MARTIJENA

Congreso; XIX Congreso anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencia; 2014

Recently, we have reported that the contextual fear memory formed during ethanol withdrawal (ETOH) is resistant to labilization after recall and that D-cycloserine (DCS, NMDA partial agonist) administration before memory reactivation promoted vulnerability to the disruptive effect of propranolol (β-adrenoceptor antagonist) on fear memory reconsolidation in ETOH rats. Preliminary results of other laboratory demonstrated that the fear memory was disrupted by a rewarding experience after retrieval. Here, we examined whether the memory reconsolidation process can be impaired by a stimuli appetitive after reactivation session in ETOH rats. Male Wistar rats made dependent via an ETOH containing liquid diet (6% v/v) for 14 days. Contextual fear conditioning was performed 3 days after withdrawal. The following two days, animals were habituated to voluntary beer (without ethanol, Quilmes Lieber) consumption for 2 hours/day. Next day, rats received an injection of DCS (5 mg/kg i.p) or saline (SAL) 30 min before a 5 min reactivation session. Fifteen minutes after, animals were subject to beer consumption for 2 hours. The freezing response was evaluated 24 h after. An affective attenuation of the freezing was observed in DCS/BEER treated ETOH group, SAL/BEER or DCS/BEER treated control animals. However, SAL/BEER treatment was ineffective in ETOH group. These effects lasted up to one week. These findings strengthen our assumption about the ethanol withdrawal induce fear memory resistant to labilization after recall. On the other hand, they indicate that DCS/BEER is an effective treatment for disrupting fear memory reconsolidation in ETOH dependent rats.