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Episodic heavy drinking is associated with auto accidents, domestic violence, and other situations that evoke traumatic memories and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Effective PTSD treatments rely on fear extinction, or replacement of neutral associations for traumatic ones, which relies on activation of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in all species. Because individuals with alcohol dependence have deficits in mPFC-mediated functions, these researchers used mice to investigate the effect of several weeks of intermittent exposure to inhaled alcohol (chronic intermittent ethanol; CIE) or vaporized air on the later acquisition and extinction of conditioned fear (a sound paired with foot shock).
CIE and control groups had similar anxi…