Topic: adolescent alcohol drinking

Excessive alcohol consumption during adolescence is regarded as a risk factor for the development of alcoholism later in life, but the pathophysiological mechanisms that render the adult brain susceptible to alcohol are largely unknown. GABAA receptors are among the targets of alcohol to regulate neural activity in the brain. Work from our lab has demonstrated that activin, a member of the TGF-β family, controls alcohol potentiation of GABAA receptors in adult mouse dorsal hippocampus. Considering the well-known functional segregation along the hippocampal longitudinal axis, we examined here h