Avaliação das respostas comportamentais tipo ansiosas em camundongos adultos após a intoxicação alcoólica em camundongos adolescentes.

Abstract

Alcohol is one of the most widely consumed psychoactive substances in the world, and its abusive use constitutes an important public health problem, being associated with the development of Alcohol Use Disorder. Adolescence represents a particularly vulnerable period to the effects of ethanol due to intense changes in the central nervous system, involving brain maturation and alterations in systems related to inhibitory control, reward, and emotional regulation. Alcohol exposure during this stage may produce long-lasting behavioral changes, increasing susceptibility to psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety disorders. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of alcohol intoxication during adolescence on anxiety-related behaviors in adult C57BL/6J mice. The animals received 0.9% saline solution or ethanol (3.5 g/kg; i.p.) in four intoxication/abstinence cycles, consisting of three consecutive days of administration followed by three days of abstinence. In adulthood, the animals were subjected to the Social Interaction Test (SIT) and the Novelty-Suppressed Feeding Test (NSF), ethological models used to assess anxiety in rodents. In the overall analyses, no statistically significant differences were observed between the control and intoxicated groups in the evaluated parameters. However, when considering sex as a factor, a significant interaction between sex and treatment was observed in phase 2 of the Social Interaction Test, with reduced duration of contact with an unfamiliar animal in males previously exposed to ethanol during adolescence, an effect not observed in females. In the NSF test, no significant differences were found between groups. The results demonstrate that alcohol intoxication during adolescence did not promote broad alterations in anxiety-like behaviors in adulthood; however, it induced specific changes related to social interaction in males. These findings reinforce adolescence as a critical period of vulnerability to the effects of alcohol and highlight the importance of considering sex differences when investigating the behavioral consequences of early ethanol exposure.