Assesment of cognitive effects of binge drinking at adolescence and adulhood in rats

LUQUE, MARIBEL; SALGUERO, AGUSTÍN; SUAREZ, ANDREA; PAUTASSI, RICARDO MARCOS

Congreso; IX INTERNATIONAL MEETING of the Latin American Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (LASBRA); 2019

Binge drinking is a widespread behavior. A recent study reported that close to 60% of a sample of college students from Argentina consumed 4-5 drinks in 2 ≤ hours. These consumption patterns can yield shortand long-term negative consequences, including cognitive alterations. We study the effects of binge ethanol exposure during adolescence (postnatal days 30 to 60, PDs 30-60) or young adulthood (PDs 70-100) on anxiety response, exploration of novel environments and short-term memory. Specifcally, we exposed adolescent or adult rats to self-administered (concentration: 8-10%) ethanol during the frst two hours of the dark cycle, every other day for four weeks; or the rats were given only handling (control group) or were administered ethanol (i.p.) at doses that matched those ingested by the rats in the self-administration group. The rats were then tested in the light-dark box test (LDB), in an open feld (OF) test and in a novel object recognition (NOR) test. The results indicated greater anxiety response in the LDB in male adolescent, but not in male adult, rats given binge or i.p. ethanol, relative to non-exposed controls. Adolescent, but not adult, rats exposed to self-administered binge ethanol exhibited heightened motor habituation during the open feld assessment and more time spent interacting with the objects introduced in the arena during the NOR test. Level of short-term recognition memory, however, was similar across age, sex and history of ethanol exposure. The present results highlight some subtle, yet relevant, behavioral impairments induced by binge ethanol exposure. A relevant fnding is that these alterations were observed when the binge ethanol exposure occurred at adolescence, but not when the exposure occurred at adulthood.