The team found that on days when a female mouse had high levels of oestrogen circulating in the body, it drank more, compared to days with low levels
Drinking alcohol when oestrogen levels are surging could compel
women to hit the bottle harder, thereby possibly driving them to ‘binge-drink’,
researchers said after they found that female mice drank much more on days when
the sex hormone’s levels were high.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, is the
first to find that a higher oestrogen level in the body promotes
‘binge-drinking’ behaviour in women by contributing to sex-specific
differences, researchers said.
Binge-drinking is said to intensify alcohol’s harmful effects,
with women being more vulnerable to the negative health effects, compared to
men.
Researchers, led by those at Weill Cornell Medicine, US,
previously showed that neurons in a brain region called ‘bed nucleus of the
stria terminalis’, or BNST, were more excitable in female mice, compared to
male ones.
Sometimes referred to as ‘extended amygdala’, the BNST is a
central hub for regulating stress-related brain activity, including mood,
anxiety and depression.
The enhanced activity in BNST correlated with the female mice’s
binge drinking behaviour, the researchers said.
“Oestrogen has such powerful effects on so many behaviours,
particularly in females. So, it makes sense that it would also modulate
drinking,” senior author Kristen Pleil, associate professor of pharmacology at
Weill Cornell Medicine, said.
In the latest study, the researchers monitored ‘oestrogen’ hormone
levels throughout the oestrous cycle of female mice — the equivalent of
menstrual cycle in women — following which, the mice were served alcohol.
The team found that on days when a female mouse had high levels of
oestrogen circulating in the body, it drank more, compared to days with low
levels.
“We found that female mice displayed greater binge alcohol
drinking and reduced avoidance when oestrogen was high during the oestrous
cycle than when it was low,” the authors said.
The intensified binge-drinking behaviour was related to heightened
activity in BNST, the researchers said.
“When a female takes her first sip from the bottle containing
alcohol, those neurons go crazy. And if she’s in a high-oestrogen state, they
go even crazier,” Pleil said.
That extra boost of neural activity meant that the mice hit the
bottle even harder, particularly within the first 30 minutes after the alcohol
was made available, Pleil explained.
The study’s findings could lead to new approaches for treating
alcohol use disorder, the authors said.
No comments:
Post a Comment