Name: MATHEUS CAVATTI SANTOS
Publication date: 04/12/2020
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| LÍVIA CARLA DE MELO RODRIGUES | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| LÍVIA CARLA DE MELO RODRIGUES | Advisor * |
| ROSANA SUEMI TOKUMARU | External Examiner * |
| SONIA ALVES GOUVEA | Internal Examiner * |
Summary: Disorders in alcohol consumption are one of the main risk factors for the development of neurological disorders worldwide. The partial and incomplete full development of the central nervous system during adolescence, especially of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), aggravates the behaviour of heavy and episodic (binge) alcohol consumption. The PFC areas work in an articulate and concurrent way to coordinate highly complex functions, such as working memory. Working memory is a temporary information storage mechanism WHERE such information is modulated to accomplish complex tasks like language processing, learning and reasoning. Therefore, this study is dedicated to understand the effects caused by binge drinking on the spatial working memory of rats assessed by the 8-arm radial maze task. The animals were exposed to the 8-arm radial maze in order to perform the tasks provided for this test. After passing through all the phases, the animals that reach 0 or 1 error for three consecutive trials were eligible to start the treatment. They were divided into two groups according to the treatment schedule, acute or chronic binge, and subdivided into other four groups according to the dosage of alcohol they received: control (received water), 3g/kg, 6g/kg and 9g/kg of ethanol per animal weight via gavage. As soon as the treatment was over, the animals were conducted to perform the pre- and post-one hour delay tasks and had their number of errors evaluated in each trial. In the one-hour delay tasks after the acute treatment, only the group that received 6g/kg of ethanol had a significant impairment in the post-delay trial. In the pre-delay trials for the chronic treatment, the group that received 3g/kg had a significant impairment compared to control, while in the post-delay trials all the groups that received ethanol, 3g/kg, 6g/kg, 9g/kg, had significant performance impairment compared to control. The findings of this study revealed that binge ethanol consumption, especially in a chronic pattern, impairs the spatial working memory of juvenile rats.
