A novel animal model to study the association between alcohol abuse during late adolescence with common conditions observed in combat Veterans

前额叶皮层（PFC）的成熟是青春期向成年期过渡的标志。 由于PFC在25岁左右成熟，可以肯定地说，大多数前线士兵仍在服役期间 青春期疾病控制和预防中心报告说， 所有被调查职业的酒精使用情况。此外，在战斗部署后，酒精使用增加。 因此，大多数服务人员在PFC仍然存在的期间暴露于大量酒精 不成熟PFC通过自上而下的控制来调节许多皮层下区域的活动; 这样做可以调节和整合情绪和压力反应，以及动机和奖励追求。 把上述事实放在一起，我们假设，"持续和高水平的消费， 酒精的服务人员，影响PFC的发展，使这些科目更容易发展 困扰我们的退伍军人的条件，如：改变压力反应，成瘾，抑郁，情绪波动， 创伤后应激障碍。测试这一假设及其潜在的机制， 合适的动物模型将为该领域做出巨大贡献。 不幸的是，目前的动物模型在研究长期饮酒的后果方面存在局限性 仅限于青春期后期。例如，啮齿动物的青春期很短，很难 模仿慢性重度酒精摄入在非人类灵长类动物中，“青春期后期”太长了 使得实验非常耗时和昂贵。在这项为期三年的BLRD申请中，我们建议开发一个 一种新的动物模型，可以模拟长期的重度饮酒限制在青春期后期。 开发这个模型将为测试青春期后期酒精暴露如何改变 多巴胺能神经传递和压力反应--使前额叶皮层容易受到"第二次"的伤害。 例如高压力和创伤性脑损伤（TBI）。这些信息可以帮助我们理解 退伍军人更容易受到心理健康障碍的影响，并可能制定治疗干预措施。

The maturation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a hallmark of the transition between adolescence to adulthood. Because the PFC matures around 25 years of age, it is safe to say that most frontline soldiers are still during adolescence. The Center of Disease Control and Prevention reports that service members have the highest alcohol use of all queried professions. Moreover, alcohol use increases following combat deployment. Therefore, most service members are exposed to large amounts of alcohol during a period that the PFC is still immature. The PFC acts through top-down control to regulate the activity of many subcortical regions; and doing so regulates and integrates emotional and stress responses, as well as motivation and reward seeking. Taking the aforementioned facts together we hypothesize that “consumption of constant and high levels of alcohol by service members, affects PFC development and makes these subjects more prone to develop conditions that afflict our Veterans such as: altered stress response, addiction, depression, mood swings and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Testing this hypothesis and its underlying mechanisms in an appropriate animal model would make a great contribution to the field. Unfortunately, current animal models have limitations in studying consequences of chronic alcohol use restricted to late adolescence. For instance, rodents have a very short-late adolescence, making it difficult to mimic a chronic and heavy alcohol consumption. In non-human primates, “late adolescence” is too long making experiments very time consuming and costly. In this 3-year BLRD application, we propose to develop a novel animal model that can mimic prolonged heavy alcohol consumption restricted to late adolescence. Developing this model would pave the way to test how alcohol exposure during late adolescence can alter dopaminergic neurotransmission and stress responses - making the prefrontal cortex vulnerable to “second hits” such as high stress and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). This information could help us understand why Veterans are much vulnerable to mental health disorders and potentially devise therapeutic interventions.