Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Schwabachanlage 6, 91054, Erlangen, Germany.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2019 Jul;236(7):2059-2067. doi: 10.1007/s00213-019-05199-y. Epub 2019 Feb 23.
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is highly comorbid with alcohol use disorders, but the complex relationship between social fear and alcohol drinking is poorly understood due to the lack of specific animal models.
We investigated whether social fear alters ethanol drinking under both stress-free and stress-inducing conditions and whether ethanol alleviates symptoms of social fear.
We used the social fear conditioning (SFC) paradigm, an animal model with face and predictive validity to SAD, to induce specific social fear in male CD1 mice, i.e., without comorbid depression or anxiety-like behavior. Plasma corticosterone (CORT) levels were measured in conditioned (SFC) and unconditioned (SFC) mice after exposure to non-social or social stimuli. Ethanol drinking was assessed in the two-bottle free-choice paradigm (1) for 16 days under stress-free conditions and (2) for 6 h after exposure to social stimuli. The effects of ethanol drinking and social fear on anxiety-like behavior and taste preference were tested in the elevated plus-maze and sucrose and quinine preference tests.
We show that exposure to social but not non-social stimuli leads to higher plasma CORT levels in SFC compared with SFC mice. We also show that social fear decreases voluntary ethanol consumption under stress-free conditions, but increases ethanol consumption after exposure to social stimuli. Ethanol drinking, on the other hand, reduces social fear without altering anxiety-like behavior, locomotor activity, and taste preference.
These results have important clinical connotations as they suggest that voluntary ethanol drinking might specifically reverse symptoms of social fear in a SAD-relevant animal model.
社交焦虑障碍（SAD）与酒精使用障碍高度共病，但由于缺乏特定的动物模型，社交恐惧与饮酒行为之间的复杂关系仍不清楚。
我们研究了社交恐惧是否会在无压力和压力诱导条件下改变乙醇的摄取，以及乙醇是否可以缓解社交恐惧的症状。
我们使用社交恐惧条件反射（SFC）范式，这是一种具有针对 SAD 的面部和预测有效性的动物模型，在雄性 CD1 小鼠中诱导特定的社交恐惧，即没有共病的抑郁或焦虑样行为。在暴露于非社交或社交刺激后，测量条件反射（SFC）和非条件反射（SFC）小鼠的血浆皮质酮（CORT）水平。在无压力条件下，通过双瓶自由选择范式评估乙醇摄取 16 天（1），在暴露于社交刺激后 6 小时评估乙醇摄取 2 次。在高架十字迷宫和蔗糖和奎宁偏好测试中测试了乙醇摄取和社交恐惧对焦虑样行为和味觉偏好的影响。
我们发现，与 SFC 相比，暴露于社交刺激而非非社交刺激会导致 SFC 小鼠的血浆 CORT 水平升高。我们还发现，在无压力条件下，社交恐惧会降低自愿性乙醇摄取，但会增加暴露于社交刺激后的乙醇摄取。另一方面，乙醇摄取可减轻社交恐惧，而不改变焦虑样行为、运动活性和味觉偏好。
这些结果具有重要的临床意义，因为它们表明在 SAD 相关的动物模型中，自愿性乙醇摄取可能特异性地逆转社交恐惧的症状。
