Drinking alcohol during pregnancy is particularly detrimental for the developing brain and may cause a broad spectrum of cognitive and behavioral impairments, collectively known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). While behavioral abnormalities and brain damage have been widely investigated in animal models of FASD, the sex differences in the vulnerability to perinatal ethanol exposure have received less consideration. Here we investigated the long-term behavioral and molecular effects of acute ethanol-binge like exposure during the early postnatal period (equivalent to the third trimester of human pregnancy) in adult male and female mice. CD1 mice received a single ethanol exposure on P7 and were analyzed starting from P60. We found that ethanol-exposed mice showed increased activity in the open field test and in the plus-maze test, regardless of the sex. Interestingly, only ethanol-exposed adult male mice exhibited memory impairment in the water maze and fear-conditioning tests. Remarkably, hippocampal levels of NMDA-R2B were reduced only in ethanol-exposed male, while total BDNF levels were increased in both male and female ethanol-exposed mice. Our data suggest a different susceptibility of early postnatal ethanol exposure in male and female CD1 mice.

中文翻译：

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小鼠早期产后乙醇暴露可导致成年后性别依赖性记忆障碍和海马NMDA-R2B表达降低。

怀孕期间饮酒对发育中的大脑尤其有害，并可能引起广泛的认知和行为障碍，统称为胎儿酒精谱系障碍（FASD）。尽管在FASD的动物模型中已广泛研究了行为异常和脑损伤，但对围生期乙醇暴露易感性的性别差异的关注较少。在这里，我们研究了成年雄性和雌性小鼠在出生后早期（相当于人类妊娠的晚期三个月）急性乙醇叮咬样暴露的长期行为和分子效应。CD1小鼠在P7上接受了一次乙醇暴露，并从P60开始进行了分析。我们发现，暴露于乙醇的小鼠在野外试验和正迷宫试验中显示出增强的活性，不论性别。有趣的是，只有暴露于乙醇的成年雄性小鼠在水迷宫和恐惧条件测试中表现出记忆力减退。值得注意的是，仅在暴露于乙醇的雄性中海马的NMDA-R2B水平降低，而在暴露于雄性和雌性乙醇中的小鼠中总BDNF水平均升高。我们的数据表明，雄性和雌性CD1小鼠的出生后早期乙醇暴露易感性不同。