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Effects of Chronic Stress on Alcohol Reward‐ and Anxiety‐Related Behavior in High‐ and Low‐Alcohol Preferring Mice
Author(s) -
Breit Kristen R.,
Chester Julia A.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/acer.12992
Subject(s) - anxiety , alcohol , psychology , alcohol consumption , conditioned place preference , fear conditioning , conditioning , young adult , developmental psychology , medicine , physiology , endocrinology , psychiatry , addiction , chemistry , biochemistry , statistics , mathematics
Background Stress exposure (SE) during adolescence is associated with an increased risk for the development of alcohol use disorders ( AUD s). Past research has shown that SE during adolescence increases voluntary alcohol consumption in mice during adulthood; however, little is known about the positive or negative motivational aspects of this relationship. Methods High‐alcohol preferring ( HAP 2) and low‐alcohol preferring ( LAP 2) male mice were exposed to stress during adolescence, stress during adulthood, or no stress. After a 30‐day interim, subjects were exposed to alcohol‐induced place and footshock‐induced fear conditioning procedures to measure stress‐induced behavioral alterations during adulthood. Results SE during adolescence did not increase the magnitude of alcohol‐induced conditioned place preference ( CPP ), as hypothesized, but increased the magnitude of conditioned fear, as measured by fear‐potentiated startle ( FPS ), in HAP 2 subjects only. Regardless of stress treatment group, LAP 2 subjects showed greater alcohol‐induced CPP expression than HAP 2 mice. HAP 2 mice also showed greater FPS than LAP 2 mice, as previously shown. Conclusions These results in mice, taken together with past research, suggest that mice exposed to stress during adolescence do not increase alcohol consumption during adulthood because of a greater sensitivity to the rewarding effects of alcohol, as measured via place conditioning. These results in mice also suggest that humans exposed to stress during adolescence may be more susceptible to developing anxiety during adulthood. The findings may be particularly relevant for humans with a familial history of AUD s.