Taurine and ethanol preference: a microdialysis study using Sardinian alcohol-preferring and non-preferring rats

Recent intracerebral microdialysis studies of different rat brain regions have shown that an acute ethanol injection induced a rapid dose-dependent increase in taurine microdialysate content during the first 60-min period. In taurine-supplemented rats, a reduced aversion for high ethanol doses was observed in a place conditioning paradigm, suggesting that taurine may be implicated in the regulation of some adverse effects of ethanol. The present study compares the effects of acute ethanol injections (1.0 and 2.0 g/kg, i.p.) on taurine nucleus accumbens microdialysate content in Sardinian ethanol-preferring (sP) and Sardinian ethanol-non-preferring (sNP) rats. While neither saline nor 1.0 g/kg ethanol injections had significant effect on taurine microdialysate concentration, 2.0 g/kg ethanol administration induced a rapid and significant increase in taurine microdialysate content in both sP and sNP rats. However, this ethanol-induced taurine release was significantly reduced in sP rats by comparison to sNP rats. As taurine is suggested to be released by brain cells to modulate different ethanol adverse effects, this lower taurine responsiveness to ethanol in sP rats by comparison to both sNP and Wistar rats may be a relevant indicator of reduced ethanol aversive effects in such animals and therefore be related to their higher alcohol consumption.