Abstract
Perinatal alcohol exposure affects ontogenic neurodevelopment, causing physical and functional long-term abnormalities with limited treatment options. This study investigated long-term consequences of continuous and intermittent maternal alcohol drinking on behavioral readouts of cognitive function and alcohol vulnerability in the offspring. The effects of environmental enrichment (EE) during adolescence were also evaluated. Female rats underwent continuous alcohol drinking (CAD)—or intermittent alcohol drinking paradigm (IAD), along pregestation, gestation, and lactation periods—equivalent to the whole gestational period in humans. Male offspring were reared in standard conditions or EE until adulthood and were then assessed for declarative memory in the novel object recognition test; spatial learning, cognitive flexibility, and reference memory in the Morris water maze (MWM); alcohol consumption and relapse by a two-bottle choice paradigm. Our data show that perinatal CAD decreased locomotor activity, exploratory behavior, and declarative memory with respect to controls, whereas perinatal IAD displayed impaired declarative memory and spatial learning and memory. Moreover, both perinatal alcohol-exposed offspring showed higher vulnerability to alcohol consummatory behavior than controls, albeit perinatal IAD rats showed a greater alcohol consumption and relapse behavior with respect to perinatal-CAD progeny. EE ameliorated declarative memory in perinatal CAD, while it mitigated spatial learning and reference memory impairment in perinatal-IAD progeny. In addition, EE decreased vulnerability to alcohol in both control and perinatal alcohol-exposed rats. Maternal alcohol consumption produces drinking pattern-related long-term consequences on cognition and vulnerability to alcohol in the offspring. However, increased positive environmental stimuli during adolescence may curtail the detrimental effects of developmental alcohol exposure.
Highlights
Perinatal exposure to alcohol can affect in utero neurodevelopment, causing both physical and functional long-term alterations (Dejong et al, 2019)
The present study aimed at evaluating the long-term consequences of maternal continuous- and binge-like intermittent alcohol drinking, from pre-conceptional time to lactation, on the adult male offspring’s cognitive behavioral readouts, including behavioral reactivity, declarative and spatial learning and memory, and alcohol vulnerability
We exposed the offspring to an enriched rearing environment during adolescence, in order to evaluate whether sensorimotor stimulation and social interaction at that age could result in a rescue strategy able to mitigate or prevent perinatal alcohol-induced adverse effects
Summary
Perinatal exposure to alcohol can affect in utero neurodevelopment, causing both physical and functional long-term alterations (Dejong et al, 2019). While the consequences related to heavy prenatal alcohol exposure are generally acknowledged, the assessment of the neurobehavioral alterations potentially produces by low-tomoderate alcohol exposure in humans displays mixed results (Kelly et al, 2013; Flak et al, 2014; Kilburn et al, 2015) This may be due to a number of methodological issues—most of the studies focus on physical malformations—and confounding variables, such as the unreliable self-reports about the degree of alcohol exposure (number of drinks per week rather than amount at one session) and the underestimation of subtle neurobehavioral deficits which may appear later in life (Conover and Jones, 2012)
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