Fig. 1.

Characterization of the mitochondrial respiration of EW rats. Young adult male rats received an ethanol diet program consisting of two cycles of an ethanol/control diet for 4 weeks and withdrawal for 2 weeks. At the end of the ethanol program, rats were humanely sacrificed, and their prefrontal cortex was collected to measure mitochondrial respiration using an XF respirometer. ADP (1 mM), oligomycin (ATP synthase inhibitor, 2 µM), FCCP (uncoupler, 0.6 µM), and NaN₃ (CcO inhibitor, 5 µM) were added to mitochondria in a sequential order immediately after the basal respiration had been measured. For control rats, the addition of ADP increased mitochondrial respiration, which was subsequently decreased and then increased back by oligomycin and FCCP addition, respectively. EW rats show lower basal mitochondrial respiration (P = 0.002) and a lack of response to ADP, oligomycin, or FCCP compared with control diet rats. CcO inhibitor (NaN₃) inhibited the mitochondrial respiration of both control and EW rats (P < 0.002). The time zero on the x-axis indicates the time when brain samples were loaded to the XF respirometer. Depicted values are mean ± S.E.M., n = 6 or 7 rats/group. Some S.E.M. values are not shown because they were small.