Altered Binge Drinking Behavior in Response to Uncontrollable Stress
Date
2018-05
Authors
Carlson, Mitchell
Major Professor
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Clark, Dr. Peter
Committee Member
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Abstract
Traumatic experience is a major risk factor for alcohol abuse, which cost the United States over $200 billion each year. Currently, the mechanism behind how stressful events translate into alcoholic tendencies is not well understood. The purpose of this project is to understand how traumatic experiences affect binge drinking in mice as a model for human alcohol abuse patterns. Mice of the C57BL/6J strain are known to drink alcohol to a degree that mirrors binge drinking in humans when given free access to ethanol. Of the 24 mice in the study, half underwent a tail shock procedure to induce acute stress while the other 12 served as a control. Both categories were subdivided further to explore how the timing of ethanol exposure affects binge-drinking behavior. With preliminary data, alcohol consumption increased after the stressor, but no trends achieved significance (p<0.05). Data collection is ongoing to increase the sample size for statistical purposes. Future directions for research include exploring neural pathways affected by traumatic experiences to uncover the link between stress and alcohol abuse.
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