^1,2 Marieliz Dieppa Rodríguez, ^1,2 Mario Lloret Torres, ^2,3 Jovangelis González del Toro, ^1,2 Cristina Velázquez- Marrero

University of Puerto Rico, Medical Science Campus, San Juan P.R.; – Institute of Neurobiology, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, P.R.; University of Puerto Rico, Cayey Campus, Cayey P.R.

Introduction: Alcohol misuse and dependence remain pressing public health concerns, impacting cognition and behavior significantly. Understanding the relationship between binge-like alcohol exposure and its impact on emotional memory processes, specifically fear, can steer our inquiry into the risks of behavioral effects and cognitive alterations. In this study, we unveil the effects of short-term binge-like alcohol exposure on fear conditioning and subsequent extinction in male mice. Following this paradigm, our research reveals distinct alterations in the acquisition, retention, and retrieval of fear memories following binge-like alcohol exposure during both conditioning and extinction trials.

Methods: We conducted an experiment involving fifteen male mice, subjecting them to four trials of 228 seconds each in a fear conditioning chamber. Eight of these mice were administered six intraperitoneal injections of 20% ethanol solution in saline, with one injection administered each hour to simulate binge-like alcohol exposure; the rest of the mice were administered 0.9% saline solution. Subsequently, we evaluated their ability to retrieve fear memories through four extinction trials, allowing for a comparison between the two treatment groups.

Results: After conducting the first three conditioning trials, we observed that both treatment groups presented an increase in freezing time, revealing an adequate memory retention before exposure. Following the fourth conditioning trial and the remaining three extinction trials after exposure, we observed that both treatment groups showed fear extinction capacity.

Conclusion: Our findings show no significant differences in extinction trials between treatment groups, suggesting that both control and ethanol groups successfully extinguished fear. Enduring a fourth conditioning trial after alcohol exposure appears to enhance fear extinction capacity in the ethanol group, offsetting anticipated deficits in extinction.

IACUC Approval #: A830117.

Acknowledgements: Our research is made possible by the support of NIH grant R01AA027808 (CVM) and NIMHD S21MD001830. Additionally, our work complies with the IACUC protocol with the number

Keywords: conditioning, extinction, fear, male mice, binge, alcohol