Behavioural alterations induced by intermittent ethanol intake and noise exposure in adolescent rats

GUSTAVO EZEQUIEL BUJAN, LUCIANA D?ALESSIO, HÉCTOR ALEJANDRO SERRA, SONIA JAZMÍN MOLINA, LAURA RUTH GUELMAN

European Journal of Neuroscience

Wiley Online Library

Año: 2022

Alcohol intake and exposure to noise are common activities of human adolescentsperformed in entertainment contexts worldwide that can induce behaviouraldisturbances. Therefore, the aim of the present work was to investigatein an experimental model of adolescent animals whether noise exposure andintermittent ethanol intake, when present individually or sequentially, mightbe able to modify different behaviours. Adolescent Wistar rats of both sexeswere subjected to voluntary intermittent ethanol intake for 1 week followed byexposure to noise for 2 h and tested in a battery of behavioural tasks. Datashow that males exposed to noise experienced a deficit in associative memory(AM), increase in anxiety-like behaviours (ALB) and altered reaction to novelty(RN) when compared with sham animals, whereas females also showedan increase in risk assessment behaviours (RABs) and a decrease in exploratoryactivity (EA). In contrast, ethanol intake induced an increase in RABand RN in males and females, whereas females also showed a deficit in AMand EA as well as an increase in ALB. When ethanol was ingested before noiseexposure, most parameters were counteracted both in male and females, butdiffered among sexes. In consequence, it could be hypothesized that an environmentalacute stressor like noise might trigger a behavioural counteractinginduced by a previous repeated exposure to a chemical agent such as ethanol,leading to a compensation of a non-adaptive behaviour and reaching a betteradjustment to the environment.