Elsevier

Alcohol

Volume 16, Issue 3, October 1998, Pages 213-219
Alcohol

Articles
Time-Dependent Effects of Acute Ethanol Administration on Regional Cerebral Blood Flow in the Rat

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0741-8329(98)00005-6Get rights and content

Abstract

The present study investigated the role of the postinjection interval in determining the functional consequences of acute ethanol administration in the CNS. Regional cerebral blood flow (RCBF) was determined by the [14C]iodoantipyrine method in 33 brain structures of ethanol-naive Sprague–Dawley rats. In the first experiment, changes in RCBF were assessed 5 and 15 min after a 0.8 g/kg (IP) dose of ethanol or water. Five minutes after treatment, rates of RCBF were increased in the motor cortex, agranular insular cortex, and the olfactory tubercle compared to water controls. No significant differences compared to control were found at the 15-min time point, despite the continued presence of ethanol in the blood. Experiment 2 tested whether blood ethanol level was the sole determinant of this response to ethanol by comparing animals with the same blood ethanol level at the 5- and 15-min time points. Greater rates of RCBF were found at 5 min postinjection compared to 15 min, in the motor cortex, agranular insular cortex, caudate/putamen, cerebellum, and the lateral septum. These data demonstrate that the rates of cerebral blood flow are increased in regionally discrete portions of the rat brain shortly after ethanol administration. Furthermore, blood ethanol level is not the exclusive factor governing this functional response.

Section snippets

Animals

Twenty-five adult male Sprague–Dawley rats that weighed 250–300 g at the time of the experiment were used as subjects. Animals were housed under a 12 L:12 D cycle, lights on at 0700 h, with access to food (Purina rat chow) and water ad lib. All procedures were carried out in accordance with established practices as described in the NIH Guide for Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. In addition, all procedures were reviewed and approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of Wake Forest

Experiment 1—Effects of Time After Ingestion of a Single Dose of Ethanol

The effects of the acute injection of 0.8 g/kg of ethanol on RCBF in ethanol-naive rats were determined at 5 and 15 min after the administration of ethanol. These time points were chosen because they occurred at distinctly different places on the blood ethanol curve, as shown in Fig. 1. Rates of RCBF were determined for individual brain structures and are shown in Table 1.

Ethanol altered RCBF in a restricted group of brain structures (one-way ANOVA, p < 0.05). Post hoc comparisons identified

Discussion

The present results demonstrate that the effects of the acute administration of ethanol on RCBF clearly vary as a function of time since administration. These time-dependent alterations in rates of RCBF provide evidence that the effects of ethanol undergo dynamic changes even over a relatively brief period of time. In addition, these results indicate that level of blood ethanol alone cannot predict the pattern of changes in functional activity produced by ethanol. The time since ingestion must

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by NIAAA Grant AA09291 (L.J.P.). Special thanks is offered to Stephanie Hart for her technical expertise and to Hilary Smith for her careful editing of this manuscript.

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