ArticleAlcohol, clinical & experimental research2023
Escalation of alcohol intake is associated with regionally decreased insular cortex activity but not changes in taste quality.
Article in Alcohol, clinical & experimental research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sex differences in insular cortex function in persistent alcohol drinking despite aversion in mice.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Attenuated conditioned taste aversion for sucrose in female mice with a history of chronic low-dose ethanol exposure.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- The S1-insula Circuit Differentially Modulates Alcohol Drinking and Aversive Behavior in Mice.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- The contributions of taste cues to ethanol responses in female and male rats.Physiology & behavior · 2025Article
- Alcohol drinking is associated with greater calcium activity in mouse central amygdala dynorphin-expressing neurons.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2025Article
- Bilateral insular cortical lesions reduce sensitivity to the adverse consequences of acute ethanol intoxication in Pavlovian conditioning procedures.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Article
- Adolescent nicotine exposure promotes adulthood opioid consumption that persists despite adverse consequences and increases the density of insular perineuronal nets.Addiction neuroscience · 2024Article
- Prior experience with flavored alcohol increases preference for flavored alcohol but flavor does not influence binge-like drinking behavior in mice.Physiology & behavior · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundIntermittent access to ethanol drives persistent escalation of intake and rapid transition from moderate to compulsive-like drinking. Intermittent ethanol drinking may facilitate escalation of intake in part by altering aversion-sensitive neural substrates, such as the insular cortex (IC), thus driving greater approach toward stimuli previously treated as aversive.
methodsWe conducted a series of experiments in rats to examine behavioral and neural responses associated with escalation of ethanol intake. First, taste reactivity analyses quantified the degree to which intermittent brief-access ethanol exposure (BAEE) alters sensitivity to the aversive properties of ethanol. Next, we determined whether pharmacological IC inhibition facilitated ethanol escalation. Finally, given that the IC is primary gustatory cortex, we employed psychophysical paradigms to assess whether escalation of ethanol intake induced changes in ethanol taste. These paradigms measured changes in sensitivity to the intensity of ethanol taste and whether escalation in intake shifts the salient taste quality of ethanol by measuring the degree to which the taste of ethanol generalized to a sucrose-like ("sweet") or quinine-like ("bitter") percept.
resultsWe found a near-complete loss of aversive oromotor responses in ethanol-exposed relative to ethanol-naïve rats. Additionally, we observed significantly lower expression of ethanol-induced c-Fos expression in the posterior IC in exposed rats relative to naïve rats. Inhibition of the IC resulted in a modest, but statistically reliable increase in the acceptance of higher ethanol concentrations in naïve rats. Finally, we found no evidence of changes in the psychophysical assessment of the taste of ethanol in exposed, relative to naïve, rats.
conclusionsOur results demonstrate that neural activity within the IC adapts following repeated presentations of ethanol in a manner that correlates with reduced sensitivity to the aversive hedonic properties of ethanol. These data help to establish that alterations in IC activity may be driving exposure-induced escalations in ethanol intake.
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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.