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Psychology

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University of Massachusetts Amherst

Heather Richardson

2012

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Adolescent Binge Drinking Leads To Changes In Alcohol Drinking, Anxiety, And Amygdalar Corticotropin Releasing Factor Cells In Adulthood In Male Rats, Heather Richardson, N. W. Gilpin, C. A. Karanikas Feb 2012

Adolescent Binge Drinking Leads To Changes In Alcohol Drinking, Anxiety, And Amygdalar Corticotropin Releasing Factor Cells In Adulthood In Male Rats, Heather Richardson, N. W. Gilpin, C. A. Karanikas

Heather Richardson

Heavy episodic drinking early in adolescence is associated with increased risk of addiction and other stress-related disorders later in life. This suggests that adolescent alcohol abuse is an early marker of innate vulnerability and/or binge exposure impacts the developing brain to increase vulnerability to these disorders in adulthood. Animal models are ideal for clarifying the relationship between adolescent and adult alcohol abuse, but we show that methods of involuntary alcohol exposure are not effective. We describe an operant model that uses multiple bouts of intermittent access to sweetened alcohol to elicit voluntary binge alcohol drinking early in adolescence (~postnatal days …