Beer drinkers are at greater risk than consumers of other alcoholic beverages for having children with fetal alcohol effects. The magnitude of the risk is increased because beer is a very popular beverage in our society (Sixty Special Report to the U.S. Congress on Alcohol and Health, January, 1987). Thus, this proposal has been developed to use a method for voluntary beer drinking by rats to study the influence of maternal beer drinking during pregnancy on nervous system function of the offspring. Because there is little information in the literature on the effects of beer drinking on the nervous systems of adults; studies of adult rats will be carried out, following studies of the offspring of pregnant beer drinkers. This research project will provide information regarding differences in neuroamines, metabolites and rate turnover in naive animals which voluntarily drink beer, compared to non-preferring animals. Neuroamine, metabolite levels and turnover will also be evaluated in beer preferring animals following a period of chronic beer drinking, compared to controls: and in the offspring of females which consumed beer during gestation, compared to offspring of controls. Male and female Long Evans rats (85 days old) will be tested for preference for beer and assigned to the beer group (BR) if greater than 50 mi beer are consumed within 24 h, or pairfed (PF) or control groups (CT) if less than 30 mi beer are consumed within 24 H, Response to a challenge dose of ethanol (3 g/kg; i.p.) of beer drinking animals, controls, offspring of beer drinkers and offspring of controls will be tested by measuring rectal temperatures, tail flick latency, performance on a tilted plane and blood ethanol levels (Sigma) for a 7 h period following ethanol injection. Naive rats, rats which have chronically consumed beer and offspring of pregnant beer drinkers will be killed by focused microwave irradiation. 10 days following implantation of jugular catheters, and 50 and 90 min following injection of 3H-tryptophan and 3h-tyrosine. Brains brainstem and striatum for assay of neuroamines, metabolites and rate of turnover by high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection (HPLC-ECD). Content and specific activity of DA, DOPAC, HVA, NE, 5-HT and 5-HIAA will be analyzed by HPLC-ECD with subsequent collection of individual peaks for scintillation counting. An n of 15 for each data point will be used. An n of 15 litters will be used to provide littermeans for analyses of pup data. Data will be analyzed by analysis of variance; significant F's will be evaluated by Tukey's test
| Lancaster, F E; Spiegel, K S (1992) Sex differences in pattern of drinking. Alcohol 9:415-20 |
| Lancaster, F E; Spiegel, K S (1992) Alcoholic and nonalcoholic beer drinking during gestation: offspring growth and glucose metabolism. Alcohol 9:9-15 |
