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Brief Prenatal Ethanol Exposure Alters Behavioral Sensitivity To The Kappa Opioid Receptor Agonist (U62,066e) And Antagonist (Nor-Bni) And Reduces Kappa Opioid Receptor Expression, Michael E. Nizhnikov, Ricardo M. Pautassi, Jenna M. Carter, Justine Landin, Elena Varlinskaya, Kelly Bordner, David F. Werner, Norman E. Spear

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Approximately 10 to 15% of women consume alcohol (ethanol [EtOH]) during pregnancy in the United States. Even low amounts of EtOH consumption during pregnancy can elicit long-term consequences. Prenatal experience with as few as 3 drinks has been associated with increase problem drinking in adulthood. Such effects are corroborated in rodents; however, the underlying neural adaptations contributing to this effect are not clear. In the current set of experiments, we investigated whether changes in EtOH responding following prenatal EtOH exposure involved kappa opioid receptor activation and expression.Methods
Sprague–Dawley rats were prenatally exposed to low levels of alcohol (1.0 g/kg) during …