The Role of Sex in the Persistent Effects of Adolescent Alcohol Exposure on Behavior and Neurobiology in Rodents

Overview

Journal Int Rev Neurobiol

Specialties Biology
Neurology
Psychiatry

Date 2021 Oct 26

PMID 34696877

Citations 19

Authors

Donita L Robinson

Leslie R Amodeo

L Judson Chandler

Fulton T Crews

Cindy L Ehlers

Alexander Gomez-A

Kati L Healey

Cynthia M Kuhn

Victoria A Macht

S Alexander Marshall

H Scott Swartzwelder

Elena I Varlinskaya

David F Werner

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Alcohol drinking is often initiated during adolescence, and this frequently escalates to binge drinking. As adolescence is also a period of dynamic neurodevelopment, preclinical evidence has highlighted that some of the consequences of binge drinking can be long lasting with deficits persisting into adulthood in a variety of cognitive-behavioral tasks. However, while the majority of preclinical work to date has been performed in male rodents, the rapid increase in binge drinking in adolescent female humans has re-emphasized the importance of addressing alcohol effects in the context of sex as a biological variable. Here we review several of the consequences of adolescent ethanol exposure in light of sex as a critical biological variable. While some alcohol-induced outcomes, such as non-social approach/avoidance behavior and sleep disruption, are generally consistent across sex, others are variable across sex, such as alcohol drinking, sensitivity to ethanol, social anxiety-like behavior, and induction of proinflammatory markers.

Citing Articles

Sex-dependent effects of acute stress and alcohol exposure during adolescence on mRNA expression of brain signaling systems involved in reward and stress responses in young adult rats.

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Alcohol, flexible behavior, and the prefrontal cortex: Functional changes underlying impaired cognitive flexibility.

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Adolescent alcohol exposure persistently alters orbitofrontal cortical encoding of Pavlovian conditional stimulus components in female rats.

Pochapski J, Gomez-A A, Stringfield S, Jaggers H, Boettiger C, da Cunha C Sci Rep. 2024; 14(1):13775.

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Epigenetic regulation of microglia and neurons by proinflammatory signaling following adolescent intermittent ethanol (AIE) exposure and in human AUD.

Crews F, Macht V, Vetreno R Adv Drug Alcohol Res. 2024; 4:12094.

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Adolescent alcohol disrupts development of noradrenergic neurons in the nucleus of the tractus solitarius and enhances stress behaviors in adulthood in mice in a sex specific manner.

Aguilar L, Coker C, McCullers Z, Evans A, Showemimo O, Melkumyan M Addict Neurosci. 2024; 9.

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