Exploring The Effect of Binge Drinking Using Drinking-in-the-Dark During Early vs. Late Adolescence in Female Rats

Boccia, Andrea

Exploring The Effect of Binge Drinking Using Drinking-in-the-Dark During Early vs. Late Adolescence in Female Rats

Persistent URL

https://hdl.handle.net/10456/59251

Author(s)

Boccia, Andrea

Date Issued

March 31, 2025

Abstract

High levels of alcohol consumption in a short period of time, or binge drinking, is known to be greater in adolescents than in adults in both humans and laboratory animals. Adolescence is a unique period of neurodevelopment that is characterized by increased vulnerability to binge alcohol-induced alterations in brain maturation and adult neurobiology. Evidence suggests a diversity of neurodevelopmental differences between early/mid-adolescence and late adolescence/emerging adulthood, indicating these could be unique periods of sensitivity to insults such as alcohol. Notably, recent epidemiological data suggests that binge drinking is on the rise in young women, indicating the need for research in females. The present study evaluated binge-like alcohol drinking in adolescent Sprague-Dawley female rats during two distinct developmental periods: early adolescence (postnatal day [P] 32-46) and late adolescence (P50-64; n=9/group). Rats were exposed to 20% (v/v) ethanol (vs. water) 3 hours into the dark cycle for 2 hours a day for 13 days according to the Drinking in the Dark (DID) model of binge drinking during adolescence. Following the adolescent DID sessions, rats were exposed to 4 weeks of operant conditioning training: the first week was training, the following three weeks were under a FR1 schedule of reinforcement, using 20% (v/v) ethanol for the first two weeks and the same solution sweetened with 0.1% saccharin for the last. While no significant main effect of age of exposure was found neither during the DID nor during the self administration sessions, late adolescent DID exposed rats were found to be more likely to acquire self administration in adulthood when compared to their early adolescents exposed counterparts. Taken together, these findings might suggest that binge-like exposure to alcohol during early adolescence results in deficits in effort-related behaviors in adulthood in female rats. Future directions should focus on better characterization of the different consequences that binge alcohol exposure in discrete vulnerable stages of adolescence may have in the adult brain.

Major

Neuroscience

Honors

Neuroscience, 2025

First Reader(s)

Bertholomey, Megan L.