The Impact of Interferons on Microglial Activation in the Context of Alcohol Withdrawal (2024)
Undergraduate: Neyha Baddigam
Faculty Advisor: Leon Coleman
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience
As alcohol use disorder continues to grow in prevalence, higher emphasis has been placed on understanding the role neuroinflammation plays in the negative affects caused by alcohol withdrawal. Interferons are a pro-inflammatory mediator and are known to further these negative affects. Therefore, examining the differences in microglial expression in various regions of the brain can aid in better understanding the role interferons play in alcohol use disorders. This paper examines microglial activation in the infralimbic cortex (IL), bed nucleus of the striate terminalis (vBNST), dentate gyrus (DG), and central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA). Immunofluorescence techniques were utilized to investigate how the persistent effects of alcohol use cause physiological changes in these regions in both wild-type and interferon-α/β receptor knockout mice treated with ethanol. This research supports the hypothesis that the mechanistic pathway of proinflammatory activation by microglia after binge alcohol consumption involves interferon signaling.