Study Examines Impact of Alcohol Withdrawal

Is it well-known that long-term exposure to alcohol enables an individual to build a tolerance to the substance. If alcohol is no longer consumed, withdrawal symptoms can emerge, including agitation, anxiety, tremors and even seizures. Small doses of alcohol can provide relief from these symptoms, which suggests that there is an alcohol-induced adaptation that resets the balance of signaling in neural circuits in the brain.

The challenge in such situations is that the molecular mechanisms that are responsible for withdrawal are poorly understood and likely to be complex. In a recent Physorg report, neuroscientists from the University of Southampton’s School of Biological Sciences, studied the brains of worms to try and better understand why the brain works in this way in relation to alcohol.

Worm brains react to alcohol much the same way that human brains do, providing the perfect specimen to use in the investigation of the genetic basis of neural plasticity induced by alcohol. In studying the reactions of the worms, scientists are able to determine how signaling in nerve circuits are affected by alcohol and how this in turn affects behavior.

During this study, roughly 50 worms were subjected to “food races” in which they were placed on one end of a plate with a food source at the other end. The worms learned to navigate towards the food and their efficiency was measured by counting the percentage of worms reaching the food in a given time. When alcohol was given to the worms, their ability to reach the food was reduced. If a worm exhibited withdrawal symptoms, a small amount of ethanol improved their performance.