Figure 4.

Forced treatment with alcohol modeled by intraperitoneal injection with alcohol reduces anxiety level selectively in mice with acid sphingomyelinase deficiency (KO) as observed in the elevated plus maze (A–C), but not in the open field test (D–G). Alcohol injections do not affect the behavior of mice in the novelty suppressed feeding test (H), but has depressogenic effect in KO mice in the forced swim test (I). Forced treatment with alcohol does not affect acid sphingomyelinase (Asm) activity in the dorsal hippocampus of KO and wild type (wt) mice (J). The error bars show the mean ± SEM (***p < 0.001, *p < 0.05 vs. wt animals).