Citation

Murillo Gonzalez DJ, Hernandez Granados BA, Sabandal PR, Han KA. Addict. Biol. 2024; 29(6): e13420.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/adb.13420

PMID

38898729

PMCID

PMC11187408

Abstract

Alcohol consumption occurring in a social or solitary setting often yields different behavioural responses in human subjects. For example, social drinking is associated with positive effects while solitary drinking is linked to negative effects. However, the neurobiological mechanism by which the social environment during alcohol intake impacts on behavioural responses remains poorly understood. We investigated whether distinct social environments affect behavioural responses to ethanol and the role of the dopamine system in this phenomenon in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. The wild-type Canton-S (CS) flies showed higher locomotor response when exposed to ethanol in a group setting than a solitary setting, and there was no difference in females and males. Dopamine signalling is crucial for the locomotor stimulating effect of ethanol. When subjected to ethanol exposure alone, the dopamine transport mutant flies fumin (fmn) with hyper dopamine displayed the locomotor response similar to CS. When subjected to ethanol in a group setting, however, the fmn's response to the locomotor stimulating effect was substantially augmented compared with CS, indicating synergistic interaction of dopamine signalling and social setting. To identify the dopamine signalling pathway important for the social effect, we examined the flies defective in individual dopamine receptors and found that the D1 receptor dDA1/Dop1R1 is the major receptor mediating the social effect. Taken together, this study underscores the influence of social context on the neural and behavioural responses to ethanol.

Language: en

Keywords

Female; Male; Social Environment; Animals; Social Behavior; ethanol; Motor Activity/drug effects; dopamine; social environment; hyperactivity; dopamine transporter; social context; *Dopamine/metabolism; *Drosophila melanogaster/drug effects; *Drosophila Proteins/genetics; *Ethanol/pharmacology; Behavior, Animal/drug effects; Central Nervous System Depressants/pharmacology; D1 receptor; Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins/drug effects/genetics; Drosophila; Locomotion/drug effects; Receptors, Dopamine D1/drug effects; Receptors, Dopamine/drug effects/metabolism; Signal Transduction/drug effects; social setting; stimulant effect