ETHANOL WITHDRAWAL DECREASED THE EXPRESSION OF GABA-A α1-SUBUNIT IN BASOLATERAL AMYGDALA AND ELICITS A MEMORY TRACE RESISTANT TO LABILIZATION AFTER RECALL

Concepción

Workshop; International Workshop First Joint Meeting on Alcohol and other Drugs of Abuse: from molecules to human disorders; 2013

Latin American Society for Biomedical Researchon Alcoholism (LASBRA), the NucleoMilenioEstrés y Adicción (NEDA) and the LatinAmerican Research Network in Drug Abuse (LARNEDA).

We have recently reported that withdrawal from chronic ethanol (ETOH) administration facilitated the formation of contextual fear memory, which is resistant to the disruptive effect of propranolol (PROP; β-adrenoceptor antagonist) and midazolam (MDZ; positive allosteric modulator of GABA-A receptors) following memory reactivation. In addition, d-cycloserine (DCS, NMDA partial agonist) administration before memory reactivation promoted vulnerability to the disruptive effect of PROP (intra-BLA or systemic administration) on fear memory reconsolidation in ETOH rats. MDZ was also ineffective in DCS pre-treated ETOH rats. Here we examine whether the lack of the amnesic effect of MDZ in ETOH withdrawn rats could be attributed to changes in the total and/or surface expression of GABA-A receptor α1-subunit in BLA. Male Wistar rats received an ETOH containing liquid diet (6% v/v) for 14 days. On the 3rd day of withdrawal, animals were sacrificed for Crosslinking BS3 assay and then analyzed by Western Blot. A significant decrease of total and surface protein expression was observed in ETOH withdrawn rats respect to control animals. Our finding indicated that the resistance to MDZs disruptive effect on fear memory reconsolidation in ETOH withdrawn rats may be due to, at least in part, to the decrease of total and surface protein expression of GABA-A alpha1-subunit in BLA induced by chronic ethanol administation/withdrawal