Browsing by Author "Smith, Rebecca J."

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    Spontaneous Early Withdrawal Behaviors after Chronic 24-hour Free-Choice Access to Ethanol
    (Oxford University Press, 2020-08-14) Hauser, Sheketha R.; Smith, Rebecca J.; Toalston, Jamie E.; Rodd, Zachary A.; McBride, William J.; Bell, Richard L.; Psychiatry, School of Medicine
    Aims: Abstinence after chronic alcohol consumption leads to withdrawal symptoms, which are exacerbated after repeated cycles of relapse. This study examined withdrawal-like behaviors after chronic ethanol drinking, with or without repeated cycles of deprivation. Methods: Male alcohol-preferring (P) rats had access to continuous ethanol (CE), chronic ethanol with repeated deprivation (RD), or remained ethanol naïve (EN). The RD group experienced seven cycles of 2 weeks of deprivation and 2 weeks of re-exposure to ethanol after an initial 6 weeks of ethanol access. Withdrawal was measured after an initial 24 h of ethanol re-exposure in the RD group, which coincided with the same day of ethanol access in the CE group. Withdrawal-like behavior was measured by (a) ethanol intake during the initial 24 h of re-exposure, (b) locomotor activity (LMA) in a novel field 9-13 h after removal of ethanol at the beginning of the fifth re-exposure cycle and (c) acoustic startle responding (ASR) 8-15 h after removal of ethanol at the beginning of the sixth re-exposure cycle. Results: The RD rats displayed a 1-h alcohol deprivation effect (ADE) (temporary ethanol increase), relative to CE rats, during the first to fourth and seventh re-exposure cycles. RD and CE rats displayed significant increases in LMA than EN rats. Regarding ASR, RD rats displayed significantly greater ASR relative to EN rats. Conclusion: This study confirms that P rats meet the animal model criterion for ethanol-associated dependence, without a reliance on either behavioral (limited fluid access) or pharmacological (seizure threshold manipulation) challenges.