Department of Neuroscience, Center for Drug & Alcohol Programs, Medical University of South Carolina, USA.
Department of Neuroscience, Center for Drug & Alcohol Programs, Medical University of South Carolina, USA.
Neuropharmacology. 2021 Feb 15;184:108393. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2020.108393. Epub 2020 Nov 19.
Animal models of alcohol drinking and dependence are a critical resource for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms and development of more effective treatments for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Because most rat strains do not voluntarily consume large enough quantities of alcohol to adequately model heavy drinking, dependence, and withdrawal-related symptoms, researchers frequently turn to experimenter administered methods to investigate how prolonged and repeated exposure to large quantities of alcohol impacts brain and behavior. Vaporized ethanol is a common method used for chronically subjecting rodents to alcohol and has been widely used to model both binge and dependence-inducing heavy drinking patterns observed in humans. Rodent strain, sex, and age during exposure are all well-known to influence outcomes in experiments utilizing intraperitoneal or intragastric methods of repeated ethanol exposure. Yet, despite its frequent use, the impact of these variables on outcomes associated with ethanol vapor exposure has not been widely investigated. The present study analyzed data generated from over 700 rats across an eight-year period to provide a population-level assessment of variables influencing level of intoxication using vapor exposure. Our findings reveal important differences with respect to strain, sex, and age during ethanol exposure in the relationship between blood ethanol concentration and behavioral signs of intoxication. These data provide valuable scientific and practical insight for laboratories utilizing ethanol vapor exposure paradigms to model AUD in rats.
动物饮酒和依赖模型是理解酒精使用障碍（AUD）的神经生物学机制和开发更有效治疗方法的关键资源。由于大多数大鼠品系不会自愿摄入足够大量的酒精来充分模拟重度饮酒、依赖和戒断相关症状，因此研究人员经常采用实验者管理的方法来研究长时间和重复暴露于大量酒精对大脑和行为的影响。汽化乙醇是一种用于使啮齿动物长期接触酒精的常见方法，已广泛用于模拟人类中观察到的 binge 和依赖诱导的重度饮酒模式。暴露期间的啮齿动物品系、性别和年龄都众所周知会影响利用腹膜内或胃内重复乙醇暴露方法进行的实验的结果。然而，尽管它经常被使用，但这些变量对与乙醇蒸气暴露相关的结果的影响尚未得到广泛研究。本研究分析了超过 700 只大鼠在八年期间产生的数据，以提供人群水平的评估，评估使用蒸气暴露影响中毒程度的变量。我们的发现揭示了在乙醇暴露期间，与血液乙醇浓度和中毒行为迹象之间的关系有关的品系、性别和年龄方面的重要差异。这些数据为利用乙醇蒸气暴露范式在大鼠中模拟 AUD 的实验室提供了有价值的科学和实践见解。
