Negative affect as the primary emotional component in animal models of alcohol abuse and avoidance

dc.contributor.advisorDuvauchelle, Christine L.
dc.contributor.advisorSchallert, Timothy
dc.contributor.committeeMemberGonzales, Rueben
dc.contributor.committeeMemberCormack, Lawrence
dc.contributor.committeeMemberLee, Hongjoo
dc.contributor.committeeMemberDominguez, Juan
dc.creatorReno, James Michael, II
dc.creator.orcid0000-0002-1764-9653
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-26T15:35:54Z
dc.date.available2018-09-26T15:35:54Z
dc.date.created2016-08
dc.date.issued2016-08-16
dc.date.submittedAugust 2016
dc.date.updated2018-09-26T15:35:54Z
dc.description.abstractEmotion plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of human substance abuse. Even though ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are a highly translational means of revealing affective state in preclinical models of substance abuse, difficulties in data management, including time-intensive methods used to tabulate and analyze multidimensional USV data has slowed the development of the field. To address this problem, we developed an automated USV analysis program (e.g., (WAV-file Automated Analysis of Vocalizations Environment Specific or “WAAVES”) that not only allows for rapid tabulation of USV counts, but assessment of a variety of USV acoustic characteristics (e.g. mean frequency, duration, bandwidth and power) for each individual USV as well. We used the WAAVES program to assess USV counts and acoustic characteristics to examine changes in affective state during a alcohol consumption paradigm (e.g., drinking-in-the-dark or “DID”) involving 7-hour daily sessions over 8 weeks. USV data analyses from lengthy, long duration experiments would not be feasible in the absence of automated analyses such as WAAVES. Thus our findings revealing that alcohol-naïve rats selectively bred to consume excessive levels of alcohol (e.g., alcohol-preferring “P” rats) have baseline bias toward negative affect and that alcohol consumption influences negative affect USVs and acoustic characteristics was entirely novel in the USV and alcohol addiction field. In our next study, we decided to extend the examination of USV acoustic characteristics in divergent rat lines selectively bred for high alcohol consumption and alcohol avoidance (alcohol-preferring “P” and non-alcohol preferring “NP” rats, respectively) using advanced statistical techniques. Specifically, we applied a linear mixed model (LMM) to each acoustic characteristic (mean frequency, duration, bandwidth and power) separately and used linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to examine all four acoustic characteristics together to determine if acoustic characteristics could distinguish between these divergent rat lines. LMM findings revealed extensive differences in all four characteristics for the negative affect-related subtype of USVs, while the positive affect-related USVs displayed minimal differences between high- and low-alcohol preferring rat lines. The LDA analyses echoed these results, showing that negative, but not positive affect-related USV characteristics were capable of distinguishing these rat lines.
dc.description.departmentPsychology
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifierdoi:10.15781/T2M32NV7W
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2152/68577
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectEmotion
dc.subjectAffect
dc.subjectSubstance abuse
dc.subjectAlcohol use disorder
dc.subjectAlcohol-preferring rat
dc.subjectP rat
dc.subjectUltrasonic vocalizations
dc.subjectUSV
dc.subjectAutomated data analysis
dc.titleNegative affect as the primary emotional component in animal models of alcohol abuse and avoidance
dc.typeThesis
dc.type.materialtext
thesis.degree.departmentPsychology
thesis.degree.disciplinePsychology
thesis.degree.grantorThe University of Texas at Austin
thesis.degree.levelDoctoral
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophy

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