Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Pharmacy - Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Overcrowding is a growing problem that prevails in the urban areas of both developing and developed countries. It is considered as a kind of psychosocial stress that affects behavior and physiology of individuals and societies. Adolescence is a neurochemical development and an altered behavioral modeling period. A major question arises, whether overcrowding during adolescence will affect neurobehavioral pharmacological actions of xenobiotics, thus, the present study aimed to evaluate the impact of overcrowding on neurobehavioral profile of ethanol during adolescence, either in male or female rats. The study was implemented on Sprague Dawley male and female adolescent rats (postnatal day35±1) that were randomly divided into five groups: i- Control group: adolescent male rats housed in a single cage in mass weight 300 g/cage. ii- Saline group: uncrowded rats were given an equivalent volume of saline i.p. for a similar period, served as control for alcohol group. iii- Overcrowded group: adolescent rats housed in a single cage in mass weight {u2265} 900 g/cage for one week. iv- Alcohol group: ethanol treated adolescent rats (2g /kg, i.p) daily for one week. v- Alc+ overcrowded group: adolescent rats exposed to overcrowding and daily treated with ethanol for one week. Twelve rats were utilized in each group. Locomotor and exploratory behaviors, sociability and fear response were assessed using open field, social interaction and defensive probe burying tests, respectively. Brain wet tissue content of nitric oxide, reduced glutathione and TBARS, as well as, catalase activity were evaluated. Moreover, monoamines levels, namely dopamine (DA),norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT), in addition to 5-HIAA were spectro-photoflourimetrically estimated in different brain regions namely cerebellum, pons & medulla, amygdala, prefrontal cortex, cerebral cortex and hippocampus. Results: While overcrowding decreased anxiety in female adolescent rats, it increased sociability and fear response in male rats. Alcohol treatment impaired motor exploratory behavior of male rats

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