HIPPOCAMPAL-RELATED BEHAVIORAL ALTERATIONS FOUND IN NOISE-EXPOSED ADOLESCENT RATS. EFFECTS OF A SUBSEQUENT ALCOHOL INTAKE

MOLINA, SJ; MICELI, M; GUELMAN, LR

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 2nd Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Neuroscience Societies (FALAN) Congress and XXXI Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias (SAN); 2016

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

It is known that noise exposure can affect both auditory and extra-auditory structures. Besides, it has been recognized that alcohol is the most consumed substance among human adolescents and that alcohol intake can provoke impairments in cognitive functions.Considering the likelihood to experience a combined exposure to both agents, the aim of this work was to investigate if noise exposure is capable of generating behavioral changes in adolescent animals and if these changes could be affected after alcohol consumption.Male Wistar rats (28-days-old) were exposed to noise (95-97 dB, 2h) followed by the administration of alcohol/water for 3 days, using the two-bottle choice paradigm. Afterwards, memory and anxiety assessment tests were performed.Results show that whereas noise-exposed rats presented deficits in habituation memory, rats drinking alcohol evidenced a deficit in associative memory and a decrease in anxiety-like behaviors. The combined exposure produced changes in exploratory activity and an increase in anxiety-like behaviors, being different to those observed using each agent separately.These results suggest that exposure to physical and chemical agents during adolescence could induce behavioral alterations that diverge depending on the agent used, although the observed behavioral alterations could be avoided when agents were combined. However, new alterations appeared, confirming a high vulnerability of the developing brain to these clinically relevant agents.