Adolescence is a developmental period during which high ethanol use is common. Studies using rodent models of adolescence have observed age-related differences in sensitivity to many of ethanol's properties, including greater sensitivity of adolescents than adults to ethanol-induced social facilitation, but attenuated sensitivity to ethanol- induced motor impairment, sedation, and dysphoria. Such age discrepancies in sensitivity suggest that adolescents and adults may perceive ethanol's subjective effects differently. Ethanol discrimination procedures have been used extensively to gain insight into the interoceptive (i.e., subjective) properties of ethanol, but studies using such procedures have largely neglected adolescent subjects. Using an established animal model of adolescence, the proposed work aims to characterize the ethanol cue in adolescent rats relative to adults using a Pavlovian conditioned approach drug discrimination procedure amenable to testing animals within the relatively short developmental period of adolescence. This procedure will allow for comparison of discrimination acquisition in adolescents and adults under a variety of training conditions that will take into account age differences in ethanol sensitivity. Given that GABA{A} and NMDA receptor systems have been identified as major contributors to the ethanol cue in adult animals, psychopharmacological studies will then examine the role of developmental alterations in GABA{A} and NMDA subunit composition in the ethanol cue in animals of each age by testing subunit-specific compounds in ethanol substitution tests and quantifying subunit expression in specific brain regions across age using both mRNA and protein assays.
Alcohol intake is elevated in adolescence, although factors contributing to high intake are only beginning to be understood. The interoceptive (subjective) properties that influence the motivation to seek and consume alcohol can be studied in an ethanol discrimination procedure using an animal model of adolescence. The proposed work will use this procedure to explore the neural substrates that may account for why alcohol may be perceived differently by adolescents and adults.
| Anderson, Rachel I; Spear, Linda P (2014) Age differences in ethanol discrimination: acquisition and ethanol dose generalization curves following multiple training conditions in adolescent and adult rats. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 38:186-94 |
