The present study was designed to determine whether a low dose of acute
ethanol administration could attenuate cognitive deficits associated with
traumatic brain injury. Adult male rats received
oral administration of
ethanol or
drinking water 2 h prior to surgery to produce a blood
ethanol concentration of 100 mg% and then received bilateral
contusion injuries of the medial prefrontal cortex. Seven days after surgery, the rats began 10 days of testing for acquisition of spatial localization in the Morris water maze where they were required to find a hidden platform to escape from the water. The results indicate that the rats given
ethanol at the time of injury later spent significantly less time searching for the hidden platform than their water-treated counterparts. On a memory probe test given on the final day of testing, in which the platform was removed from the pool, rats given the
ethanol spent more time in the area where the platform had been located indicating that they learned its location better than the lesion/water controls. In addition, acute
ethanol treatment reduced some of the histopathology that typically occurs following severe
contusion of the medial frontal cortex but did not attenuate post-traumatic formation of
edema. These results indicate that acute
ethanol intoxication can reduce the severity of
cognitive impairments caused by contusive
traumatic brain injury and support the contention that there is a dose-response relationship of acute
ethanol intoxication in the setting of
traumatic brain injury.