Brancato Anna, Castelli Valentina, Lavanco Gianluca, Cannizzaro Carla
Department of Health Promotion, Mother and Child Care, Internal Medicine and Medical Specialties of Excellence "G. D'Alessandro", University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
Department of Biomedicine, Neuroscience and Advanced Diagnostics, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy.
Front Behav Neurosci. 2020 Sep 25;14:583122. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2020.583122. eCollection 2020.
Perinatal alcohol exposure affects ontogenic neurodevelopment, causing physical and functional long-term abnormalities with limited treatment options. This study investigated long-term consequences of continuous and intermittent maternal alcohol drinking on behavioral readouts of cognitive function and alcohol vulnerability in the offspring. The effects of environmental enrichment (EE) during adolescence were also evaluated. Female rats underwent continuous alcohol drinking (CAD)-or intermittent alcohol drinking paradigm (IAD), along pregestation, gestation, and lactation periods-equivalent to the whole gestational period in humans. Male offspring were reared in standard conditions or EE until adulthood and were then assessed for declarative memory in the novel object recognition test; spatial learning, cognitive flexibility, and reference memory in the Morris water maze (MWM); alcohol consumption and relapse by a two-bottle choice paradigm. Our data show that perinatal CAD decreased locomotor activity, exploratory behavior, and declarative memory with respect to controls, whereas perinatal IAD displayed impaired declarative memory and spatial learning and memory. Moreover, both perinatal alcohol-exposed offspring showed higher vulnerability to alcohol consummatory behavior than controls, albeit perinatal IAD rats showed a greater alcohol consumption and relapse behavior with respect to perinatal-CAD progeny. EE ameliorated declarative memory in perinatal CAD, while it mitigated spatial learning and reference memory impairment in perinatal-IAD progeny. In addition, EE decreased vulnerability to alcohol in both control and perinatal alcohol-exposed rats. Maternal alcohol consumption produces drinking pattern-related long-term consequences on cognition and vulnerability to alcohol in the offspring. However, increased positive environmental stimuli during adolescence may curtail the detrimental effects of developmental alcohol exposure.
围产期酒精暴露会影响个体发育过程中的神经发育，导致长期的身体和功能异常，且治疗选择有限。本研究调查了母体持续和间歇性饮酒对后代认知功能行为指标及酒精易感性的长期影响。同时还评估了青春期环境富集（EE）的作用。雌性大鼠在孕前、孕期和哺乳期采用持续饮酒（CAD）或间歇性饮酒模式（IAD），相当于人类的整个孕期。雄性后代在标准条件或EE环境中饲养至成年，然后在新物体识别测试中评估陈述性记忆；在莫里斯水迷宫（MWM）中评估空间学习、认知灵活性和参考记忆；通过双瓶选择范式评估酒精消耗和复吸情况。我们的数据表明，与对照组相比，围产期CAD降低了运动活动、探索行为和陈述性记忆，而围产期IAD则表现出陈述性记忆以及空间学习和记忆受损。此外，与对照组相比，两种围产期酒精暴露的后代对酒精摄取行为的易感性更高，尽管围产期IAD大鼠相对于围产期CAD后代表现出更高的酒精消耗量和复吸行为。EE改善了围产期CAD大鼠的陈述性记忆，同时减轻了围产期IAD后代的空间学习和参考记忆损伤。此外，EE降低了对照组和围产期酒精暴露大鼠对酒精的易感性。母体酒精摄入会对后代的认知和酒精易感性产生与饮酒模式相关的长期影响。然而，青春期增加积极的环境刺激可能会减少发育性酒精暴露的有害影响。
