Neural adaptation leads to cognitive ethanol dependence.

ABSTRACT: Physiological alcohol dependence is a key adaptation to chronic ethanol consumption that underlies withdrawal symptoms, is thought to directly contribute to alcohol addiction behaviors, and is associated with cognitive problems such as deficits in learning and memory. Based on the idea that an ethanol-adapted (dependent) animal will perform better in a learning assay than an animal experiencing ethanol withdrawal will, we have used a learning paradigm to detect physiological ethanol dependence in Drosophila. Moderate ethanol consumption initially degrades the capacity of larvae to learn, but they eventually adapt and are able to learn as well as ethanol-naive animals. However, withholding ethanol from ethanol-adapted larvae impairs learning. Ethanol reinstatement restores the capacity to l

SUBMITTER: Robinson BG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3528820 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature