INIMEC - CONICET   05467
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACION MEDICA MERCEDES Y MARTIN FERREYRA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Early pre- and post-natal vulnerability factors affecting alcohol intake
Autor/es:
PAUTASSI RM
Lugar:
Valparaiso
Reunión:
Workshop; II International Workshop: Motivated behaviors, stress and addiction: from molecules to behavior?; 2012
Institución organizadora:
Latin America Research Network in Drug Abuse
Resumen:
Sensitivity to alcohol?s appetitive, aversive, and anxiolytic effects may be associated with later alcohol intake, and the nature of this association likely varies across development. The present work analyzes reactivity to alcohol in subjects exposed to alcohol in-utero or that experienced early stress. Age-related differences in motivational reactivity to alcohol are also discussed. Prenatal alcohol increases alcohol intake in the adolescent offspring, a result likely related to prenatal alcohol making subjects more sensitive to the appetitive effects of alcohol and less sensitive to alcohol?s aversive consequences. Our experiments suggest that prenatal alcohol may increase alcohol-induced reward by disturbing the functionally of the kappa opioid receptor system. Adolescent rats exposed to alcohol in-utero also exhibited reduced basal neural activation at infralimbic cortex, a brain area that has been associated with deficits in extinction of learned associations. Subsequent experiments indicated that exacerbated alcohol intake at adolescence can also result from chronic maternal separation during infancy. Even in the absence of prenatal alcohol exposure or early maternal deprivation, adolescence seems to be a critical period for sensitivity to ethanol?s effects. Adolescent, but not adults, were sensitive to alcohol induced locomotor activation; whereas only adults exhibited alcohol-induced sedation. In summary, the present work indicates that prenatal exposure to alcohol or neonatal separation can act as vulnerability factors for increased alcohol intake at adolescence. Alterations in the functionality of the kappa opioid receptor system or in neural activation at pre- frontal cortex seem to be likely neurobiological underpinnings of this increased vulnerability for alcohol intake.