Effects of moderate ethanol sedation on brain regional 2-deoxyglucose uptake in alcohol-sensitive and alcohol-insensitive rat lines.

Acute intraperitoneal ethanol administration (2 g/kg) decreased the accumulation of radioactivity after [14C]2-deoxy-D-glucose injection into grossly dissected brain regions of alcohol-sensitive (ANT) and alcohol-insensitive (AT) rat lines. In autoradiography, the balance of radioactivity uptake between different functional systems (as judged from relative optical density ratios) was changed after ethanol: especially in the ANT rats, areas associated with sensory input were damped but motor relay nuclei were relatively active, suggesting a tendency to motor overactivity relative to sensory input. The ANT rats furthermore showed slight relative damping of cortical associative areas and differences in limbic structures compared to the AT rats, which, provided that changes in the balance between brain regions with a decreased overall activity are meaningful, suggests that the higher level of ethanol-induced motor impairment of the ANT rats may be related to defects in their integration of sensory and motor processes.