. Neonatal responsiveness to ethanol odor will be studied toward developing an assessment of prenatal ethanol exposure and understanding how this exposure leads to increased ethanol intake later in life.
Specific Aim 1 will determine the parameters of a habituation-dishabituation procedure using olfactory stimuli and measuring motor activity in prenatally untreated neonatal rats.
Specific Aim 2 will use this habituation-dishabituation procedure to test the hypothesis that prenatal ethanol exposure alters responding to ethanol odor.
This aim will also assess the uniqueness of any effects with prenatal ethanol exposure by dissecting the contribution of prenatal stress and prenatal exposure to an odor alone.
This aim will also be sensitive to any teratogenic effects of the prenatal ethanol dose by measuring baseline motor activity, motor reactivity and habituation to a novel odor, and olfactory system function with the use of a plethysmograph. Motor activity measures in the first two aims will be latency, magnitude and duration of the orienting response, and number of trials to habituation.
Specific Aim 3 will test the hypothesis that prenatal ethanol has a positive hedonic component, a possible mechanism for increased ethanol intake. This will be assessed by conditioning the neonatal rat, prenatally exposed or not, to ethanol odor and an appetitive or aversive stimulus. Learning will be demonstrated by greater attachment to an ethanol-scented artificial nipple when ethanol odor is paired with milk and less attachment when ethanol odor is paired with quinine compared to unpaired controls. If prenatal exposure to ethanol is appetitive, pups with such a treatment will show enhanced learning about ethanol odor predicting a positive outcome and worse learning when ethanol odor predicts an aversive outcome. ? ? Relevance to Public Health: Detecting moderate prenatal ethanol exposure is difficult relative to fetal alcohol syndrome yet is critical for targeting infants at risk for cognitive deficits and later ethanol abuse. With early detection, interventions may help the outcomes of these children. The proposed experiments, which cannot be conducted with humans, aim to develop a method of early detection and a better understanding of why early ethanol exposure may lead to alcohol abuse later on. ? ? ?
| Arias, Carlos; Mlewski, Estela Cecilia; Miller, Stacie et al. (2009) Novelty modulates the stimulating motor effects of ethanol in preweanling rats. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 92:448-56 |
