Effects of early experience on responsiveness to ethanol: a preliminary report

The present study examined the hypothesis that early experiences which alter an organism's response to novel or aversive stimuli and hence its ability to cope with stress might also alter sensitivity to and preference for alcohol. On day 1 of pregnancy, females were assigned to 1 of 5 groups: Handled (H), Nonhandled (NH), Malnourished (MAL), Prenatally stressed (PRE) or Control (CON). Offspring were tested in adulthood to measure their adrenocortical response to stress (ether plus cardiac puncture), adrenocortical response to IP ethanol injection and alcohol preference. Data indicate that early experience did alter responsiveness to stress in adulthood; early handling decreased later stress responsiveness and prenatal stress increased later stress responsiveness. In addition, although early experiences did not alter the corticosterone response to IP ethanol at 60 min post injection, both preweaning handling and perinatal malnutrition reduced alcohol preference in adulthood.