A double-hit model reveals individual and synergic consequences of prenatal and adolescent postnatal ethanol exposure

Abstract

Prenatal alcohol exposure is highly prevalent worldwide. InArgentina, Lichtenberger et al. (2020) reported that 2 out of 10women reported drinking during pregnancy. Reports from the US,in turn, suggest that around 5% of pregnant women endorse bingedrinking (i.e., the ingestion of four standard drinks in a single andusually brief drinking episode) sometime at pregnancy (Popovaet al., 2017). Prenatal EtOH exposure (PEE) is associated with amyriad of consequences, namely neuroanatomical alterations thattranslate into neuropsychological deficits and mental disorders,including attentional deficits and greater likelihood of being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, mental retardation (Geier &Geier, 2022) or with a group of conditions known as fetal alcoholspectrum disorders (FASDs) (Palmeter et al., 2021). Other studies suggest that PEE is associated with lingering changes in EtOHsensitivity or acceptance during infancy or adolescence, whenvoluntary EtOH drinking begins and escalates. Illustrating this, aseminal study indicated that PEE was the best predictor of adolescent involvement with EtOH, over and beyond relevant variables,such as nicotine exposure or a positive family history of alcohol usedisorder (Baer et al., 2003). In our lab, in turn, we have shown thatrats with a history of PEE exhibit, when compared to control counterparts, heightened EtOH intake (Fabio et al., 2013) and greaterEtOH-induced conditioned place preference (Pautassi et al., 2012),a measure of conditioned reward.