Effects of Chronic Intermittent Ethanol Exposure on Pavlovian Conditioned Approach to Alcohol Cues (2015)

Undergraduate: Sudheer Vemuru

Faculty Advisor: Donita Robinson
Department: Biology

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Alcohol use disorders (AUDs) represent a pervasive public health issue in which alcohol-related cues can attract excessive attention and contribute to relapse. This attentional bias (AB) to alcohol cues has been widely documented but the neurobiology remains poorly understood. We used Pavlovian conditioning to pair a light cue with an alcoholic or non-alcoholic reward and assessed AB through Pavlovian conditioned responses (CRs). Rats, which were used to transition from human to animal models, were exposed to chronic intermittent ethanol (CIE) to model binge drinking and to test whether CIE increases alcohol AB. We also administered naltrexone (NTX), a drug used to treat AUDs, to see its effects on CRs. Our results suggest rats exhibit reduced CRs to alcoholic versus non-alcoholic rewards. Moreover, CIE and NTX had minimal effect in changing alcohol AB. These findings may provide a framework for future experimentation on neural pathways and processes involved in alcohol AB.