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Exposure to alcohol during adolescence exerts long-term effects on stress response and the adult brain stress circuits
- Source :
- Neuroscience. 339
- Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis undergoes critical developments during adolescence. Therefore, stressors experienced during this period potentially have long-term effects on adult HPA axis function. We hypothesized that adolescent intermittent ethanol (AIE) exposure would affect adult HPA axis function, resulting in altered responses to an alcohol challenge in young adults or adults. To test these hypotheses, male rats were exposed to alcohol vapor for 6 h per day from post-natal day (PND) 28–42, then acutely challenged with alcohol intragastrically (3.2–4.5 g/kg) in young adults (PND 70) or adults (PND 90). Overall, we observed blunted HPA axis responses to an alcohol challenge due to AIE exposure. Specifically, AIE tended to inhibit the alcohol-challenge-induced increase in plasma corticosterone (CORT) concentrations in young adult and adult rats. As well, AIE significantly blunted the alcohol challenge-induced arginine vasopressin (Avp) mRNA expression in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus of adult rats. Results of the present study are similar to what we have previously shown, that these changes in PVN responsiveness may result from AIE-induced alterations in adrenergic neurons in brain stem regions C1–C3 known to project to the PVN. AIE elevated the number of colocalized c-fos/phenylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PNMT)-positive cell bodies in the C1 region of adult rats. Together, this data suggests that AIE exposure produces alterations in male HPA axis responsiveness to administration of an acute alcohol challenge that may be long-lasting.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Vasopressin
endocrine system
Arginine
Article
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
03 medical and health sciences
chemistry.chemical_compound
0302 clinical medicine
Corticosterone
Internal medicine
medicine
Animals
RNA, Messenger
Young adult
Ethanol
General Neuroscience
Phenylethanolamine N-Methyltransferase
Brain
Central Nervous System Depressants
Phenylethanolamine
Arginine Vasopressin
Disease Models, Animal
030104 developmental biology
Endocrinology
chemistry
Hypothalamus
Analysis of variance
Psychology
Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
hormones, hormone substitutes, and hormone antagonists
Stress, Psychological
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 18737544
- Volume :
- 339
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Neuroscience
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....87a67f53f68858fca980ecc7161c93e8