Dose-dependent effects of alcohol administration on behavioral profiles in the MCSF test

The acute effects of alcohol administration are age-, dose-, time- and task-dependent. Although generally considered to be a sedative drug, alcohol has both stimulatory and depressant effects on behavior, depending on dose and time. Alcohol-induced motor activating effects are consistently shown in mice but rarely demonstrated in adult, outbred rats using conventional behavioral tests. The aim of the present experiment was to study acute alcohol-induced effects on behavioral profiles in a more complex environment using the novel multivariate concentric square field™ (MCSF) test, designed for assessing different behaviors in the same trial including locomotor activity. Adult male Wistar rats (Sca:WI) were administered one intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of alcohol (0.0 g/kg, 0.5 g/kg, 1.0 g/kg, or 1.5 g/kg) 5 min prior to the 30-min MCSF test. The two highest doses induced marked motor-suppressing effects. A significant interaction between group and time was found in general activity when comparing rats exposed to alcohol at 0.0 g/kg and 0.5 g/kg. In contrast to the 0.0 g/kg dose that increased the activity over time, animals administered the low dose (0.5 g/kg) demonstrated an initial high activity followed by a decline over time. No indications for acute alcohol-induced anxiolytic-like effects were found. The multivariate setting in the MCSF test appears to be sensitive for detecting motor-activating effects of low doses of alcohol as well as reduced locomotion at doses lower than in other behavioral tasks. The detection of subtle changes in behavior across time and dose is important for understanding alcohol-induced effects. This approach may be useful in evaluating alcohol doses that correspond to different degrees of intoxication in humans.