Age Differences in Ethanol Effects: Tolerance and Reward

描述（由申请人提供）： 虽然青春期乙醇消费量增加的确切原因尚不清楚，但耐受性发展和对乙醇奖励效应的敏感性的年龄差异可能起着促进作用。这项拟议中的研究将检查对乙醇对自主神经系统的影响的耐受性的年龄差异，以及几个 酒精在青少年和成年大鼠之间的享乐效应的潜在标志物。使用2小时限制进入范例，将在两个年龄的动物中测量对乙醇的自主效应的耐受性以及乙醇对涉及奖励的脑通路内多巴胺功能标志物的影响。这种测试模式将提供一个独特的评估年龄差异，在这些因素，因为以前的工作在这方面已经使用了实验者管理的乙醇，但在我们的实验室工作表明，乙醇管理模式可能会影响青少年和成年人。预计青少年对乙醇的急性敏感性较低，耐受性发展较快，慢性乙醇暴露后多巴胺能活性较低，这支持了以下假设：年轻动物比成年人消耗更多乙醇，部分原因是它们对乙醇的影响相对不敏感。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): While the exact cause of the increase in ethanol consumption during adolescence is not known, age differences in tolerance development and sensitivity to ethanol's rewarding effect may play a contributory role. The proposed research will examine age differences in tolerance to ethanol's effects on the autonomic system as well as several potential markers of ethanol's hedonic effects between adolescent and adult rats. Using a 2-hour limited access paradigm, tolerance to ethanol's autonomic effects as well as the effects of ethanol on markers of dopamine functioning within brain pathways implicated in reward will be measured in animals of both ages. This testing paradigm will provide a unique assessment of age differences in these factors as previous work in this area has used experimenter-administered ethanol but work in our laboratory has indicated that mode of ethanol administration may differentially impact adolescents and adults. Adolescents are expected to show less acute sensitivity to ethanol, faster tolerance development and less dopaminergic activity following chronic ethanol exposure than adults, supporting the hypothesis that younger animals consume more ethanol than adults in part because of their relative insensitivity to its effects.