Bahi Amine
Department of Anatomy, Tawam Medical Campus, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2017 Jul 3;77:65-74. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2017.04.001. Epub 2017 Apr 5.
Previous research from our laboratory has shown that exposure to chronic psychosocial stress increased voluntary ethanol consumption and preference as well as acquisition of ethanol-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) in mice. This study was done to determine whether an enriched environment could have "curative" effects on chronic psychosocial stress-induced ethanol intake and CPP. For this purpose, experimental mice "intruders" were exposed to the chronic subordinate colony (CSC) housing for 19 consecutive days in the presence of an aggressive "resident" mouse. At the end of that period, mice were tested for their anxiety-like behavior using the elevated plus maze (EPM) test then housed in a standard or enriched environment (SE or EE respectively). Anxiety and ethanol-related behaviors were investigated using the open field (OF) test, a standard two-bottle choice drinking paradigm, and the CPP procedure. As expected, CSC exposure increased anxiety-like behavior and reduced weight gain as compared to single housed colony (SHC) controls. In addition, CSC exposure increased voluntary ethanol intake and ethanol-CPP. Interestingly, we found that EE significantly and consistently reduced anxiety and ethanol consumption and preference. However, neither tastants' (saccharin and quinine) intake nor blood ethanol metabolism were affected by EE. Finally, and most importantly, EE reduced the acquisition of CPP induced by 1.5g/kg ethanol. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that EE can reduce voluntary ethanol intake and ethanol-induced conditioned reward and seems to be one of the strategies to reduce the behavioral deficits and the risk of anxiety-induced alcohol abuse.
我们实验室之前的研究表明，长期暴露于心理社会压力会增加小鼠的自愿乙醇消耗量和偏好，以及乙醇诱导的条件性位置偏爱（CPP）的获得。本研究旨在确定丰富环境是否对慢性心理社会压力诱导的乙醇摄入和CPP具有“治愈”作用。为此，将实验小鼠“入侵者”在具有攻击性的“常驻”小鼠存在的情况下连续19天置于慢性从属群体（CSC）饲养环境中。在那段时间结束时，使用高架十字迷宫（EPM）测试对小鼠的焦虑样行为进行测试，然后将其分别饲养在标准或丰富环境（分别为SE或EE）中。使用旷场（OF）测试、标准的双瓶选择饮水范式和CPP程序来研究焦虑和与乙醇相关的行为。正如预期的那样，与单笼饲养群体（SHC）对照相比，CSC暴露增加了焦虑样行为并减少了体重增加。此外，CSC暴露增加了自愿乙醇摄入量和乙醇-CPP。有趣的是，我们发现EE显著且持续地降低了焦虑以及乙醇消耗和偏好。然而，EE对味觉剂（糖精和奎宁）的摄入量以及血液乙醇代谢均无影响。最后，也是最重要的一点，EE减少了由1.5g/kg乙醇诱导的CPP的获得。综上所述，这些结果支持了以下假设：EE可以减少自愿乙醇摄入量和乙醇诱导的条件性奖赏，并且似乎是减少行为缺陷和焦虑诱导的酒精滥用风险的策略之一。
