Infantile ethanol intake profile: A parametric comparison between two tests.

MIRANDA MORALES RS; MOLINA JC; ABATE P

Sao paulo

Congreso; II LASBRA Meeting on “The Neuroscience of Alcohol abuse and Alcoholism”; 2011

Latinamerican Society for biomedical research on alcoholism

Prenatal and early postnatal experiences with ethanol seem to facilitate later appetitive responsiveness to the drug (Spear and Molina, 2005; Abate et al., 2008). In animal models, when assessing infantile ethanol consumption, parameters that define protocol employed (i.e. volume of infusion, test time, infusion rate, etc.) are determinant to promote acceptance of the drug and achieve significant levels of ethanol consumption. The main goal of this study was to compare two schemes of ethanol infusion used in infantile consumption evaluation, in order to compare the acceptance profile of the drug, levels of consumption between both tests. Infant rats (postnatal days [PD] 14 and 15) were evaluated in ethanol 5% or water consumption. 28 animals were tested in a 15-min continue intake test –CIT– (Arias and Chotro, 2003; Miranda-Morales et al., 2010) during PD14 and 15. The volume of infusion was equivalent to the 5.5% of the body weight of the subject. Other group of subjects (31 infants) was evaluated in a 15-min pulsatile intake test –PIT– (Pueta et al., in press). The volume of infusion was 1.83% of the body weight of the subject. Solutions were delivered into the infant’s mouth using a pulsatile mode of administration (3s on, 10s off). As expected, infants evaluated in CIT consume higher levels of both, ethanol and water, than the ones in PIT. Of major importance, different rates of consumption between ethanol and water only were found in CIT. In addition, these higher levels of ethanol intake were observed during PD14 and 15. When analyzing intake score in PIT, only was observed increases in ethanol consumption from PD14 to 15. No other significant result could be observed. It seems that the level of exposure to the drug (i.e., quantities of ethanol infused) is a critical factor to promote ethanol consumption. CIT allows not only significant levels of drug consumption, but also a better acceptance of the drug since the first day of evaluation. This intake test (CIT) should be a more effective paradigm of ethanol infusion to analyze infantile ethanol intake patterns.