ONTOGENETIC DIFFERENCES IN ANXIOLYTIC EFFECTS OF ETHANOL

这项拟议的研究旨在调查与年龄有关的问题 不同性别人群对酒精抗焦虑作用的敏感性差异 断奶和青壮年的时间。眼前的目标 是为了理解酒精在什么情况下可能会起到 不同阶段有效的抗焦虑无条件刺激 关于个体发育，并确定特定的发育时期 其中有机体可能更容易受到 毒品。这些信息将为以下方面提供关键基础 随后考察了接触和学习的时间安排 关于酒精在生命早期的抗焦虑作用可能会在以后得到控制 酒精饮酒模式，并有助于发展 酒精依赖。为了实现这些目标，有两个 用于测量焦虑的实验范式，这些焦虑可能很容易 适用于不同年龄段的受试者，选择评估 潜在的个体发育差异：1)对任何 酒精的抗焦虑作用，以及2)对酒精的耐受性/敏感度 反复接触毒品的影响。实验1和实验2将 检查一次急性给药的影响 温和剂量的乙醇对恐惧增强的惊吓反应和 青春期前断奶仔猪的高架迷宫表现(P23) (P35)和成年(P75)大鼠。使用这两个任务中的任何一个， 第三个实验将检查酒精是如何通过 一系列先前的每日给药会影响焦虑剂 药物在上述年龄的作用。

The proposed research is designed to investigate age-related differences in sensitivity to anxiolytic effects of alcohol between the time of weaning and young adulthood. The immediate objectives are to understand the conditions under which alcohol may act as an effective anxiolytic unconditioned stimulus during different stages on ontogeny, and to identify specific developmental periods during which an organism may be more vulnerable to consequences of the drug. This information will provide a critical basis for subsequently examining how the timing of exposure to and learning about ethanol's anxiolytic effects early in life may control later alcohol-drinking patterns and contribute to the development of alcohol dependence. Toward achievement of these aims, two experimental paradigms used to measure anxiety that may be easily adapted for use with subjects of various ages were selected to assess potential ontogenetic differences in 1) initial sensitivity to any anxiolytic effects of alcohol, and 2) tolerance/sensitization to such effects with repeated drug exposure. Experiments 1 and 2 will examine the influence of a single acute administration of various mild doses of ethanol on the fear-potentiated startle response and elevated-plus maze performance of weanling (P23), periadolescent (P35), and adult (P75) rats. Using either of these two tasks, the third experiment will then examine how experience with alcohol via a sequence of prior daily administrations influences the anxiolytic action of the drug at the aforementioned ages.