ArticleNeuropharmacology2021
Alcohol drinking during early adolescence activates microglial cells and increases frontolimbic Interleukin-1 beta and Toll-like receptor 4 gene expression, with heightened sensitivity in male rats compared to females.
Article in Neuropharmacology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adolescent Alcohol and Stress Exposure Rewires Key Cortical Neurocircuitry.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Developmental alcohol exposure: Impacts on medial prefrontal cortex morphology and the excitatory-inhibitory balance.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2026Review
- Alcohol drinking sex-dependently regulates interleukin-1 pro-inflammatory signaling in the prefrontal cortex of mice and rhesus macaques.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2026Article
- Not just neurons: glial mechanisms driving sex-specific vulnerability to withdrawal and relapse in substance use disorder.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2026Review
- Sex differences in the neuroimmune response following heavy, binge-like alcohol exposure in adolescent rats.Journal of neuroimmunology · 2025Article
- Mechanisms of Alcohol Interference with Hippocampal Neurogenesis and its Repair Strategies.Molecular neurobiology · 2025Review
- Novel neurotherapeutic targets for substance use disorders: Neuroplasticity, neuroinflammation, gasotransmitters and non-canonical organ systems.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Review
- The link between early-life adversity and later alcohol use disorder: A role for microglia?Neurobiology of stress · 2025Article
- Impact of Neuroimmune System Activation by Adolescent Binge Alcohol Exposure on Adult Neurobiology.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2025Review
- Neuroimmune Activation and Microglia Reactivity in Female Rats Following Alcohol Dependence.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Consequences of adolescent drug use.Translational psychiatry · 2023Review
- Detrimental Effects of Alcohol-Induced Inflammation on Brain Health: From Neurogenesis to Neurodegeneration.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2023Review
- Review
- Chronic ethanol induces a pro-inflammatory switch in interleukin-1β regulation of GABAergic signaling in the medial prefrontal cortex of male mice.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2023Article
- Chronic intermittent ethanol exposure during adolescence produces sex- and age-dependent changes in anxiety and cognition without changes in microglia reactivity late in life.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Treadmill Exercise Prevents Cognitive Impairments in Adolescent Intermittent Ethanol Rats by Reducing the Excessive Activation of Microglia Cell in the Hippocampus.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Shortening time for access to alcohol drives up front-loading behavior, bringing consumption in male rats to the level of females.Biology of sex differences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Adolescent drinking is risky because neural circuits in the frontal lobes are undergoing maturational processes important for cognitive function and behavioral control in adulthood. Previous studies have shown that myelinated axons in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) are particularly sensitive to alcohol drinking, especially in males. Pro-inflammatory mediators like toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and interleukin-1 beta (IL1b) have been implicated in alcohol induced-inflammation and demyelination; thus, herein we test the hypothesis that voluntary alcohol drinking early in adolescence elicits a pro-inflammatory state that is more pronounced in the brain of males compared to females. Adolescent male and female Wistar rats self-administered sweetened alcohol or sweetened water from postnatal days 28-42 and separate sets of brains were processed for 1) immunolabeling for ionized calcium-binding adapter molecule 1 to analyze microglial cell morphology, or 2) qPCR analysis of gene expression of pro-inflammatory mediators. Binge drinking alcohol activated microglia in the mPFC and hippocampus of both males and females, suggesting that voluntary alcohol exposure initiates an inflammatory response. Il1b mRNA was upregulated in the mPFC of both sexes. Conversely, Tlr4 mRNA levels were elevated after drinking only in males, which could explain more robust effects of alcohol on myelin in this region in developing males compared to females. Il1b mRNA changes were not observed in the hippocampus, but alcohol elevated Tlr4 mRNA in both sexes, highlighting regional specificity in inflammatory responses to alcohol. Overall, these findings give insight into potential mechanisms by which low-to-moderate voluntary alcohol intake impacts the developing brain. This article is part of the special Issue on 'Vulnerabilities to Substance Abuse'.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.