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Review
. 2021:160:305-340.
doi: 10.1016/bs.irn.2021.07.007. Epub 2021 Aug 11.

The role of sex in the persistent effects of adolescent alcohol exposure on behavior and neurobiology in rodents

Donita L Robinson  1 , Leslie R Amodeo  2 , L Judson Chandler  3 , Fulton T Crews  4 , Cindy L Ehlers  5 , Alexander Gómez-A  4 , Kati L Healey  6 , Cynthia M Kuhn  7 , Victoria A Macht  4 , S Alexander Marshall  8 , H Scott Swartzwelder  6 , Elena I Varlinskaya  9 , David F Werner  9
Affiliations
Review

The role of sex in the persistent effects of adolescent alcohol exposure on behavior and neurobiology in rodents

Donita L Robinson et al. Int Rev Neurobiol. 2021.

Abstract

Alcohol drinking is often initiated during adolescence, and this frequently escalates to binge drinking. As adolescence is also a period of dynamic neurodevelopment, preclinical evidence has highlighted that some of the consequences of binge drinking can be long lasting with deficits persisting into adulthood in a variety of cognitive-behavioral tasks. However, while the majority of preclinical work to date has been performed in male rodents, the rapid increase in binge drinking in adolescent female humans has re-emphasized the importance of addressing alcohol effects in the context of sex as a biological variable. Here we review several of the consequences of adolescent ethanol exposure in light of sex as a critical biological variable. While some alcohol-induced outcomes, such as non-social approach/avoidance behavior and sleep disruption, are generally consistent across sex, others are variable across sex, such as alcohol drinking, sensitivity to ethanol, social anxiety-like behavior, and induction of proinflammatory markers.

Keywords: Adolescent; Alcohol; Behavior; Dopamine; Epigenetics; Neuroimmune; Neurophysiology; Sex.

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