Short Communication Impact of an intense stress on ethanol consumption in female rats characterized by their pre-stress preference: Modulation by prenatal stress M. Darnaudéry a,1 , H. Louvart a,1 , L. Defrance a , M. Léonhardt a , S. Morley-Fletcher a , S.H. Gruber b , G. Galietta c , A.A. Mathé b , S. Maccari a, ⁎ a Department of Neurosciences and Adaptive Physiology, Perinatal Stress Team, University of Lille 1, Bât. SN4.1, 59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq, France b Karolinska Institutet, Inst. of Clinical Neuroscience, Psychiatry M56, Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, S-141 86 Stockholm, Sweden c Department of Drug Research and Evaluation, Istituto Superiore di Sanita, I-00161 Roma, Italy ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Accepted 2 November 2006 Available online 14 December 2006 We examined the influence of prenatal stress on alcohol preference in adult female rats exposed to an intense stress. To take into account interindividual variability, the study was conducted in animals categorized as low or high alcohol preferring. After footshock, control high-preferring rats strongly reduced their alcohol consumption; in contrast, alcohol consumption was not changed in high-preferring rats that were prenatally stressed. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Alcohol Maternal stress Footshock Alcohol preference Neuropeptide Y Calcitonin gene-related peptide Alcohol has been hypothesized to serve as a coping mechan- ism against stress (Holahan et al., 2001). According to that view, stress-related psychopathologies, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, are highly co-morbid with alcohol abuse (Jacobsen et al., 2001). In animals, studies of the effects of stress on ethanol intake have produced conflicting results. Stress has been shown to induce an increase, a decrease or no effect on the alcohol intake (Nash and Maickel, 1985; Pohorecky, 1990; Sprague and Maickel, 1994; Van Erp and Miczek, 2001). This differential impact of stress on ethanol intake could result from marked individual differences in the spontaneous ethanol preference and/or in the response to stress. In rats, chronic stress during pregnancy exerts pro- found long-term influences on the offspring's ability to cope with stress in adulthood (Maccari et al., 2003). Prenatal stress induces an increase of anxiety-like behavior (Vallée et al., 1997) and depressive-like disturbances (Morley-Fletcher et al., 2003). It is also associated with a prolonged stress-induced corticosterone secretion (Maccari et al., 2003; Morley-Fletcher et al., 2003) and with an alteration of the dopaminergic function (Henry et al., 1995). Despite evidence for a higher vulnerability to psychostimulants in animals exposed to BRAIN RESEARCH 1131 (2007) 181 – 186 ⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +33 3 20434602. E-mail address: stefania.maccari@univ-lille1.fr (S. Maccari). Abbreviations: CRH, corticotropin releasing hormone; CGRP, calcitonin gene-related peptide; GR, glucocorticoid receptor; HPA, hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal; MR, mineralocorticoid receptors; NPY, neuropeptide Y; SR, situational reminder 1 M.D. and H.L. have equally contributed to this work. 0006-8993/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2006.11.005 available at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/brainres