Olmedo-Córdoba Manuela, León José Juan, López-Villegas Álvaro, Martín-González Elena, Moreno-Montoya Margarita
Department of Psychology, Clinical and Experimental Neuroscience Research Group CTS280 and CIBIS (Centro de Investigación para el Bienestar y la Inclusión Social) Research Center, University of Almería, Ctra. Sacramento, s/n, 04120, Almería, Spain.
Área de Psicobiología, School of Health Science, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón de la Plana, Spain.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2025 Sep 16. doi: 10.1007/s00213-025-06895-8.
Compulsivity is increasingly recognized as a transdiagnostic trait that amplifies vulnerability to alcohol use disorders. However, its specific role in shaping social behavior and decision-making remains underexplored.
This study aimed to identify a vulnerable phenotype characterized by compulsive alcohol drinking and evaluate its behavioral alterations within the social behavior and cognitive processes domains of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), considering sex as a modulatory factor.
Male and female Wistar rats were exposed to Schedule-Induced Polydipsia (SIP), first with water and then with alcohol. Distinct groups were formed based on intake patterns following a cluster-based analysis. We then assessed social subordination with the social dominance tube test (SDTT), sociability and social novelty with the three-chambered Crawley's test (3CT), and decision-making with the rodent Gambling Task (rGT).
We identified four distinct behavioral profiles: Low Compulsive, Compulsive Alcohol, Compulsive Water, and High Compulsive. This segmentation revealed sex-specific distributions: males were overrepresented in high alcohol consumption clusters, while females were more prevalent in low-consumption profiles, indicating sex-related susceptibility. The High Compulsive phenotype diverged from the Compulsive Alcohol group, showing lower hierarchical status and a less risky decision-making strategy, whereas no significant differences were found in overall social interaction between groups. However, general alcohol consumption diminished general sociability and abolished sex differences, suggesting a disruption of innate social motivation.
These findings support that the combination of compulsivity and alcohol intake increases behavioral vulnerability, specifically in domains of social competence and decision-making.
强迫性越来越被认为是一种跨诊断特征，它会增加酒精使用障碍的易感性。然而，其在塑造社会行为和决策中的具体作用仍未得到充分探索。
本研究旨在识别以强迫性饮酒为特征的易损表型，并评估其在研究领域标准（RDoC）的社会行为和认知过程领域内的行为改变，将性别作为调节因素进行考虑。
将雄性和雌性Wistar大鼠暴露于定时诱导多饮（SIP）环境中，先给水，然后给酒精。根据基于聚类分析的摄入模式形成不同的组。然后，我们通过社会优势管测试（SDTT）评估社会从属地位，通过三室Crawley测试（3CT）评估社交能力和社会新奇性，通过啮齿动物赌博任务（rGT）评估决策能力。
我们识别出四种不同的行为模式：低强迫性、强迫性饮酒、强迫性饮水和高强迫性。这种分类揭示了性别特异性分布：高酒精消费集群中雄性占比过高，而低消费模式中雌性更为普遍，表明存在与性别相关的易感性。高强迫性表型与强迫性饮酒组不同，表现出较低的等级地位和风险较低的决策策略，而各组之间在总体社会互动方面未发现显著差异。然而，总体酒精消费降低了总体社交能力并消除了性别差异，表明先天社会动机受到破坏。
这些发现支持强迫性和酒精摄入的结合会增加行为易损性，特别是在社会能力和决策领域。
