Changes in acute alcohol withdrawal across the lifespan in female and male C57BL/6J, DBA/2J and A/J mice; Sex, age and strain effects.Douglas B Matthews, Lydia Staebell, Samantha Feller, Jared Kendrick, Jadyn Hartwig, Aidan Riley, Michael Tommarello2nd, Katie Johnson, Ann Sobania, Kennedy Korger, Megan Schroeder, Olive Schrandt, Aiden Kerr & Pravesh Sharma. Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI 54701Understanding the effects of alcohol across the lifespan in animal models have been severely hampered by an overreliance on cross-sectional studies that compare alcohol’s effects in subjects of different ages. Aging is a dynamic process, and longitudinal studies are particularly meaningful as they determine the effect of alcohol in the same subject during the aging process. Acute alcohol withdrawal can be determined using handing induced convulsions (HIC) in mouse strains. We determined HIC 4, 6 and 7-hrs following a 4.0 g/kg alcohol injection beginning at 5 weeks of age and then approximately every two months in female (n = 10 per strain) and male (n = 10 per strain) B6, D2 and A/J mice. In addition, we determined survival curves. Acute alcohol exposure and HIC determination produced differential mortality, with males dying earlier (p < 0.0001). HIC was significantly greater in males (p < 0.05) and A/J subjects (p < 0.001) when first tested at 5-weeks of age. We next analyzed if sex differentially impacted HIC for each strain by investigating total HIC in the last age when at least 6 of the subjects were still alive per sex for each strain. No significant difference existed in B6 female and male, D2 female and male or A/J female and male HIC following the 4.0 g/kg alcohol challenge at 57 weeks of age (B6), 39 weeks of age (D2) or 21 weeks of age (A/J) although B6 females had a greater pre-alcohol HIC compared to males (p
