RT Journal Article
T1 Compensatory neuroadaptation to binge drinking: human evidence for allostasis
A1 Correas Marín, María De Los Ángeles
A1 Cuesta Prieto, Pablo
A1 Rosen, Burck Q.
A1 Maestu Unturbe, Fernando
A1 Marinkovic, Ksenija
AB Animal studies have established that acute alcohol increases neural inhibition and that frequent intoxication episodes elicit neuroadaptive changes in the excitatory/inhibitory neurotransmission balance. To compensate for the depressant effects of alcohol, neural hyperexcitability develops in alcohol use disorder and is manifested through withdrawal symptoms. It is unclear, however, whether neuroadaptive changes can be observed in young, emerging adults at lower levels of consumption in the absence of withdrawal symptoms. Here, we used an anatomically constrained magnetoencephalography method to assess cortical excitability in two independent sets of experiments. We measured early visual activity (1) in social drinkers during alcohol intoxication versus placebo conditions and (2) in parallel cohorts of sober binge drinkers (BDs) and light drinkers (LDs). Acute alcohol intoxication attenuated early sensory activity in the visual cortex in social drinkers, confirming its inhibitory effects on neurotransmission. In contrast, sober BDs showed greater neural responsivity compared with a matched group of LDs. A positive correlation between alcohol consumption and neural activity in BDs is indicative of cortical hyperexcitability associated with hazardous drinking. Furthermore, neural responsivity was positively correlated with alcohol intake in social drinkers whose drinking did not reach binge levels. This study provides novel evidence of compensatory imbalance reflected in the downregulation of inhibitory and upregulation of excitatory signaling associated with binge drinking in young, emerging adults. By contrasting acute effects and a history of BD, these results support the mechanistic model of allostasis. Direct neural measures are sensitive to synaptic currents and could serve as biomarkers of neuroadaptation.
PB Wiley
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/115158
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/115158
LA eng
NO Correas, A., Cuesta, P., Rosen, B. Q., Maestu, F., & Marinkovic, K. (2021). Compensatory neuroadaptation to binge drinking: Human evidence for allostasis. Addiction Biology, 26(3), e12960. https://doi.org/10.1111/adb.12960
NO This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, R01-AA016624, and the National Drug Plan, SPI/2010/051 (Spain)
NO National Institutes of Health (USA)
NO Plan Nacional sobre Drogras
DS Docta Complutense
RD 25 ago 2025