AUD Risk, Diagnoses, and Course in a Prospective Study Across Two Generations: Implications for Prevention

Retrospective self-reports of sensitivity to the effects of alcohol: Trait-like stability and concomitant changes with alcohol involvement

OBJECTIVE

Lower sensitivity to the acute effects of alcohol is known to confer risk for the development of alcohol use disorder. Alcohol sensitivity, or level of response to alcohol's subjective effects, is heritable but also can change as a result of persistent alcohol exposure (i.e., acquired tolerance). Here, we examined how changes over time in four indices of alcohol involvement affected scores on two validated, retrospective self-report measures of alcohol response-the Self-Rating of the Effects of Alcohol (SRE) form and the Alcohol Sensitivity Questionnaire (ASQ)-in a sample of emerging adult drinkers.

METHOD

Participants (N = 173; Mage = 19.5 years; 60% assigned female at birth) completed the ASQ, SRE, and measures of alcohol use and problems at two time points separated by a median of 0.77 years (range: 0.30-2.54 years).

RESULTS

Multiple linear regression showed that increases in drinking over this period accounted for increases in SRE and ASQ scores (i.e., in reported numbers of drinks needed to experience subjective effects of alcohol). Increased drinking accounted for more variance in the number of drinks needed to experience lighter drinking versus heavier drinking effects, and increases in the number of drinks consumed per occasion had a larger effect than did changes in total numbers of drinks consumed, number of binge-drinking occasions, or drinking-related problems.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that both SRE and ASQ capture some stable, trait-like variability in alcohol response as well as some state-dependent, within-person variability in alcohol response acquired through increases in alcohol involvement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Dihydromyricetin Protects Against Ethanol-Induced Toxicity in SH-SY5Y Cell Line: Role of GABAA Receptor

Toxicity induced by binge alcohol drinking, particularly in adolescent and young adults, is of major medical and social consequence. Recently, we reported that butyrate, a short chain fatty acid, can protect against ethanol (ETOH)-induced toxicity in an in vitro model. In this study, we sought to evaluate the potential effectiveness of dihydromyricetin (DHM), a natural bioactive flavonoid, alone or in combination with butyrate in the same model. Exposure of SH-SY5Y cells for 24 h to 500 mM ETOH resulted in approximately 40% reduction in cell viability, which was completely prevented by 0.1 μM DHM. Combinations of DHM and butyrate provided synergistic protection against alcohol toxicity. Whereas butyrate effect was shown to be mediated primarily through fatty acid receptor 3 activation, DHM protection appears to be mediated primarily via benzodiazepine receptor site of GABA_A receptor. This is based on the finding that DHM's effect could be completely prevented by pretreatment with flumazenil, a selective antagonist at this site, but not by bicuculline, a selective antagonist at the actual GABA_A receptor binding site. These findings suggest potential utility of DHM alone or in combination with butyrate against ETOH-induced toxicity.