Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2018 Mar;42(3):540-550. doi: 10.1111/acer.13584. Epub 2018 Jan 30.
Sleep disruptions are an important consequence of alcohol use disorders. There is a dearth of preclinical studies examining sex differences in sleep patterns associated with ethanol (EtOH) dependence despite documented sex differences in alcohol-related behaviors and withdrawal symptoms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of chronic intermittent EtOH on sleep characteristics in female and male mice.
Female and male C57BL6/J mice had access to EtOH/water 2-bottle choice (2BC) 2 h/d for 3 weeks followed by exposure to EtOH vapor (vapor-2BC) or air for 5 cycles of 4 days. An additional group never experienced EtOH (naïve). Mice were implanted with electroencephalographic (EEG) electrodes, and vigilance states were recorded across 24 hours on the fourth day of withdrawal. The amounts of wakefulness, slow-wave sleep (SWS), and rapid eye movement sleep were calculated, and spectral analysis was performed by fast Fourier transformation.
Overall, vapor-2BC mice showed a decrease in the amount of SWS 4 days into withdrawal as well as a decrease in the power density of slow waves, indicating disruptions in both the amount and quality of sleep in EtOH-dependent mice. This was associated with a decrease in duration and an increase in number of SWS episodes in males and an increase in latency to sleep in females.
Our results revealed overall deficits in sleep regulation in EtOH-dependent mice of both sexes. Female mice appeared to be more affected with regard to the triggering of sleep, while male mice appeared more sensitive to disruptions in the maintenance of sleep.
睡眠障碍是酒精使用障碍的一个重要后果。尽管有文献记载酒精相关行为和戒断症状存在性别差异，但缺乏研究检查与乙醇（EtOH）依赖相关的睡眠模式的性别差异的临床前研究。本研究的目的是研究慢性间歇性 EtOH 对雌性和雄性小鼠睡眠特征的影响。
雌性和雄性 C57BL6/J 小鼠每天有 2 小时的 EtOH/水 2 瓶选择（2BC），持续 3 周，然后暴露于 EtOH 蒸气（蒸气-2BC）或空气 5 个周期 4 天。一个额外的组从未经历过 EtOH（未处理）。将脑电图（EEG）电极植入小鼠体内，并在戒断的第四天记录 24 小时的警觉状态。计算清醒、慢波睡眠（SWS）和快速眼动睡眠的量，并通过快速傅里叶变换进行频谱分析。
总体而言，蒸气-2BC 小鼠在戒断第 4 天 SWS 的量减少，慢波的功率密度降低，表明 EtOH 依赖小鼠的睡眠量和质量均受到干扰。这与 SWS 持续时间的减少和数量的增加有关，男性的 SWS 发作次数增加，女性的睡眠潜伏期增加。
我们的结果显示，两性 EtOH 依赖小鼠的睡眠调节均存在总体缺陷。雌性小鼠在触发睡眠方面似乎受到的影响更大，而雄性小鼠在睡眠维持的干扰方面似乎更为敏感。
