Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology, Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile.
Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Physiology, Universidad de Concepcion, Concepcion, Chile; Programa en Neurociencia, Psiquiatría y Salud Mental, Universidad de Concepción, Concepcion, Chile.
Alcohol. 2023 Mar;107:73-90. doi: 10.1016/j.alcohol.2022.08.004. Epub 2022 Sep 7.
Ethanol is one of the most widely consumed drugs in the world and prolonged excessive ethanol intake might lead to alcohol use disorders (AUDs), which are characterized by neuroadaptations in different brain regions, such as in the reward circuitry. In addition, the global population is aging, and it appears that they are increasing their ethanol consumption. Although research involving the effects of alcohol in aging subjects is limited, differential effects have been described. For example, studies in human subjects show that older adults perform worse in tests assessing working memory, attention, and cognition as compared to younger adults. Interestingly, in the field of the neurobiological basis of ethanol actions, there is a significant dichotomy between what we know about the effects of ethanol on neurochemical targets in young animals and how it might affect them in the aging brain. To be able to understand the distinct effects of ethanol in the aging brain, the following questions need to be answered: (1) How does physiological aging impact the function of an ethanol-relevant region (e.g., the nucleus accumbens)? and (2) How does ethanol affect these neurobiological systems in the aged brain? This review discusses the available data to try to understand how aging affects the nucleus accumbens (nAc) and its neurochemical response to alcohol. The data show that there is little information on the effects of ethanol in aged mice and rats, and that many studies had considered 2-3-month-old mice as adults, which needs to be reconsidered since more recent literature defines 6 months as young adults and >18 months as an older mouse. Considering the actual relevance of an aged worldwide population and that this segment is drinking more frequently, it appears at least reasonable to explore how ethanol affects the brain in adult and aged models.
乙醇是世界上最广泛使用的药物之一，长期过量摄入乙醇可能导致酒精使用障碍（AUDs），其特征是不同大脑区域的神经适应性改变，如奖励回路。此外，全球人口正在老龄化，他们似乎在增加乙醇的摄入量。尽管涉及衰老个体中酒精影响的研究有限，但已经描述了不同的影响。例如，在人类受试者中的研究表明，与年轻成年人相比，老年人在评估工作记忆、注意力和认知的测试中表现更差。有趣的是，在乙醇作用的神经生物学基础领域，我们对年轻动物中乙醇对神经化学靶点的影响以及它如何影响衰老大脑中的这些靶点有很大的分歧。为了能够理解乙醇在衰老大脑中的独特作用，需要回答以下问题：（1）生理衰老如何影响与乙醇相关的区域（例如，伏隔核）的功能？以及（2）乙醇如何影响衰老大脑中的这些神经生物学系统？本综述讨论了现有数据，试图了解衰老如何影响伏隔核（nAc）及其对酒精的神经化学反应。数据表明，关于乙醇对老年小鼠和大鼠的影响的信息很少，许多研究将 2-3 个月大的小鼠视为成年动物，这需要重新考虑，因为最近的文献将 6 个月定义为年轻成年人，>18 个月为老年小鼠。考虑到全球实际老龄化人口的相关性以及这一年龄段饮酒更为频繁，至少有理由探讨乙醇如何影响成年和老年模型中的大脑。
