Figure 1.

Alcohol withdrawal disrupts limbic memory formation. Limbic memory was assessed in rats by (a) the EOR test, here schematically represented. Four hours after the cued fear-conditioned learning, rats were put into the central zone of Context A chamber and tested for individual zone preference in epoch BSL. Afterward emotional-object avoidance and target-zone aversion were assessed in epoch ON-1 (objects in the arena), OFF (objects removed from the arena), ON-2 (objects in the arena). Twelve hour alcohol-withdrawn rats (EtOH-WDL) displayed reduced (b) emotional object avoidance and (c) target-zone aversion with respect to alcohol-naive control (CTRL) and chronically-EtOH-exposed (EtOH-CHR) rats. No significant differences between CTRL and EtOH-CHR were recorded. EtOH-WDL did not show sensory-motor impairment, in terms of (d) TDT when video-tracked during the BSL epoch in context A chamber, and (e) tail-flick latency following the EOR test. Each bar represents the mean ± SEM; n = 8 rats. Each box-and-whisker plot represents the median (horizontal line in the box), 25–75% (box), and min-to-max (whiskers) values of n = 8 rats. ***p < 0.001, *p < 0.05.