Chronic exposure to alcohol produces adaptations within the basolateral amygdala (BLA) that are associated with the development of anxiety-like behaviors during withdrawal. In part, these adaptations are mediated by plasticity in glutamatergic synapses occurring through an AMPA receptor mediated form of post-synaptic facilitation in addition to a unique form of presynaptic facilitation. In comp...

Natural variation in gene expression is pervasive within and between species, and it likely explains a significant fraction of phenotypic variation between individuals. Phenotypic variation in acute systemic responses can also be leveraged to reveal physiological differences in how individuals perceive and respond to environmental perturbations. We previously found extensive variation in the tr...

Chronic and acute ethanol treatments increased the 3-hydroxybutyrate uptake by lactating rat mammary gland as a consequence of its high afferent concentration, without changing its relative extraction. The uptake of glucose was inhibited in the ethanol treated animals due to intrinsic alterations in the mammary gland metabolism as indicated by the decreased relative extraction and unchanged aff...

BACKGROUND Many donor organs come from youths involved in alcohol-related accidental death. The use of cardiac allografts for transplantation from donors after acute poisoning is still under discussion while acute ethanol intoxication is associated with myocardial functional and morphological changes. The aims of this work were 1) to evaluate in rats the time-course cardiac effects of acute eth...

BACKGROUND This study was performed to investigate expression and distribution of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in the rat adrenal cortex, acute effect of ethanol on its expression and possible role of endogenous nitric oxide (NO) in this phenomenon. METHODS Adult female Wistar rats showing diestrus day 1 were treated with: a) ethanol (2 or 4 g/kg body weight (b.w.), ip), b) N(ω)-nitro-L-argin...

The prion protein (PrP) is absolutely required for the development of prion diseases; nevertheless, its physiological functions in the central nervous system remain elusive. Using a combination of behavioral, electrophysiological and biochemical approaches in transgenic mouse models, we provide strong evidence for a crucial role of PrP in alcohol sensitivity. Indeed, PrP knock out (PrP(-/-)) mi...

Alcoholic liver disease encompasses a wide spectrum of pathogenesis including steatosis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and alcoholic steatohepatitis. Autophagy is a lysosomal degradation process that degrades cellular proteins and damaged/excess organelles, and serves as a protective mechanism in response to various stresses. Acute alcohol treatment induces autophagy via FoxO3a-mediated autophagy gene e...

Acute alcoholic hepatitis is characterized by infiltration of the liver parenchyma with polymorphonuclear leukocytes. As a possible explanation for this phenomenon, we have found that ethanol stimulates cultured rat hepatocytes to generate potent chemotactic activity. Hepatocytes (greater than 99% pure), isolated from the livers of Sprague-Dawley rats, responded to incubation with ethanol (2.0-...

The differential display of mRNA technique was used to screen the expressed genes in control and 50 mM chronic ethanol-treated rat C6 glial cells, with and without activation by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) combined with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA). One differentially expressed transcript was identified as that corresponding to the chemokine monocyte chemotactic protein (MCP)-3. MCP-3 is ...