Study On The Effects Of Ethanol And Acetaldehyde On Animal Dependence Behavior And Electrophysiological Function Of Ventricular Myocytes

There is a long history of alcohol drinking in China, however, frequent and heavy alcohol drinking cause safety and health problems. The effects of drinking on animal behavior or physiological function have largely been focused on alcohol, but we know that acetaldehyde is the first intermediate product in the process of alcohol metabolism and its effect on animal alcohol dependence is still not clear currently. The present study aimed to compare the different effects of alcohol and acetaldehyde on both electrophysiological function of myocytes and animal dependence behavior.The electrophysiological function of isolated toad's ventricular myocytes was measured after treated with alcohol or acetaldehyde. The result showed that ethanol reduced the action potential duration (APD₉₀) and the absolute value of resting potential (RP), but no obvious effects on the amplitude of action potential (APA) or slope of phase 0 depolarization (Vmax). On the other hand, acetaldehyde increased the APD₉₀, reduced the APA and Vmax. The absolute value of RP became larger at a lower concentration of acetaldehyde, but then reduced with higher acetydehyde.Conditioned place preference (CPP) and conditioned taste preference (CTP) of mouse were conducted to study the effects of alcohol and acetaldehyde on dependence behavior. The mice showed significant CPP to ethanol while training with ethanol for 8 times after pre-treatment with ethanol, but no significant CPP effect on acetaldehyde was observed. While trained with ethanol and acetaldehyde, the CPP effect to ethanol decreased. Mice also showed the CTP to ethanol after drinking ethanol, but the CTP to ethanol decreased while adding acetaldehyde. Mice showed no CTP to ethanol after treated with acetaldehyde, but the drinking to the admixture of ethanol and acetaldehyde increased. The results showed that acetaldehyde had important roles in alcohol dependence behavior in mice.Though the effect of alcohol on electrophysiological function and animal behavior was similar to acetaldehyde, there were some differences. Acetaldehyde played its roles at a lower concentration, and also had a positive effect on alcohol dependence in mice.