Citation

Stowell RD, Majewska AK. Eur. J. Neurosci. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Federation of European Neuroscience Societies, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/ejn.14706

PMID

32064695

Abstract

Alcohol use is highly prevalent in modern society and ramifications of alcohol abuse pose a large public health concern. Previous work investigating the effects of alcohol exposure on the brain have implicated microglia, the resident immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS), as critical participants in the brain's response to chronic and developmental ethanol (EtOH) exposure. As rapid sensors of their environment, microglia also have the capacity to rapidly respond to alcohol administration and to contribute to acute effects of alcohol on the brain, however their acute responses have not been assessed. Here for the first time, we have examined the acute response of microglia to alcohol intoxication in vivo utilizing two-photon microscopy to assess the dynamics of these motile cells in both visual cortex and the cerebellum of mice. We found that microglia respond rapidly to EtOH exposure with fast changes in morphology, motility, parenchyma surveillance, and injury response. However, regional differences between the responses of cerebellar and cortical microglial populations indicate that subtle differences in microglial physiology may alter their vulnerability to acute alcohol intoxication. Our findings suggest that the longer-term effects of repeated EtOH exposure on microglia, may result from repeat acute alterations in microglial physiology by single exposure to alcohol which rapidly alter behavior in specific microglial populations.

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Language: en

Keywords

alcohol; glia; mouse; neuroimmunology; two-photon microscopy