Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Leon Condat | Email: leoncondat@unc.edu.ar
Leon Condat1°2°, Gaston Calfa1°2°, Irene Martijena1°2°
1° IFEC-CONICET, Departamento de Farmacología Otto Orsingher
2° Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
Ethanol consumption is capable of inducing neuroinflammatory processes, resulting in limbic structures changes which, in turn, can impact on memory and learning. In this sense, the protocol for ethanol administration used in the present work becomes relevant. It was designed for the study of the above mentioned phenomena but until now, it lacks of studies about its impact on emotional memories potentially associated with neuroinflammatory changes. To do that, adult male C57BL/6N mice were exposed to a chronic consumption of ethanol in a liquid diet (5% v/v) with a final administration of ethanol (3 g/kg, i.p.). One day latter, a group of animals was tested in an Open Field Arena where ethanol consumption history was shown to be correlated with anxiogenic behavior. On day 5 of ethanol withdrawal, animals were trained with mild or high intensity Pavlovian fear conditioning. No significant decay in fear expression was detected in withdrawn animals in memory test up to 15 days after the lower training. In the absence of previous open field exposition, mild conditioned group expressed higher freezing levels than controls in a retention test. This emotional sensitization and its influence in associative learning, anxiety and fear memory persistence could be linked to the aforementioned neurochemical changes and represent the first characterization of the effect of this alcohol consumption protocol in terms of affective state.