Fig. 7.

Hippocampal neurogenesis is highly vulnerable to the neurodegenerative effects of adolescent binge ethanol exposure. Representative photomicrographs of doublecortin (DCX) immunoreactivity, a neuroprogenitor microtubule-associated protein expressed by immature neurons, in the adult dorsal and ventral hippocampal dentate gyrus following control (CON) and AIE (5.0 g.kg, i.g., 2 days on/2 days off from P25 to P55). Scale bars, 100 μm. The middle bar graph depicts multisite analyses of data from the NADIA Consortium. In adulthood (e.g., P80) following AIE, DCX + immunoreactive (+IR) cells are reduced by 36%, which is accompanied by a concomitant 25% reduction in Ki-67 + IR, which is an endogenous marker of progenitor cells (Vetreno and Crews, 2015). In parallel, cleaved caspase-3, which is a marker of cell death, was increased by 31% in the adult hippocampal dentate gyrus of AIE-exposed animals. These data reveal that AIE leads to long-term reductions of hippocampal neurogenesis that could contribute to cognitive deficits in adulthood. Multisite analysis was calculated by Dr. Margaret Burchinal from four independent data sets (Ehlers et al., 2013b; Broadwater et al., 2014b; Swartzwelder et al., 2015; Vetreno et al., 2015). Data are presented as a mean ± S.E.M. **p < 0.01, relative to CON.