Abstract
Rats were chronically implanted with electrodes in the ventral hippocampus, amygdala and anterior cortex and maintained on liquid diets as their only source of calories and fluid for 15 days. The diet consisted of 35–40% of the calories in the form of ethanol while a control group was pair-fed identical diets with sucrose isocalorically substituted for ethanol. On the sixteenth day the diets were removed and electrographic activity and behavior were simulataneously observed for 8–10 hr. Withdrawal symptoms were observed beginning 2–4 hr following alcohol abstinence and included tail-stiffening, tremors, severe ataxia and auditory-induced convulsions. EEG epileptiform activity was observed and initially consisted of transient spike events, which usually became progressively organized into brief spike burst sor sustained paroxysmal activity. The results suggested that cortical bioelecric activity may not play a primary role in the genesis of behavioral hyperexcitability during alcohol withdrawal. The utility of the method of combined observations of neural bioelectric activity and behavior for the delineation of the neural substrates of alcohol withdrawal symptoms was discussed.
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