Maternal, paternal, and dual-parental alcohol exposures result in both overlapping and distinct impacts on behavior in adolescent offspring

Abstract

Emerging research reveals that alcohol use by fathers before conception can affect the growth and development of their offspring. Here, we used a C57BL/6J mouse model to study the effects of alcohol exposure on the behavior of the first-generation (F1) offspring, comparing the impacts of alcohol exposure by mothers, fathers, and both parents. Our goal was to determine how alcohol exposure by each parent or both parents influences the behavior of the offspring. We found that adolescent male offspring of alcohol-exposed fathers showed reduced anxiety-like behaviors as they spent more time in the center of the testing arena during the open field test. Both maternal and paternal alcohol exposure caused sex-specific increases in the nestlet shredding test while decreasing the number of buried marbles in the marble burying test. Interestingly, dual-parental alcohol exposure did not produce any significant changes in these same tests. However, during novel object recognition testing, we found that dual-parental male and female offspring exhibit an increased preference for novel objects, suggesting an increased risk preference. Finally, at sixteen weeks, male offspring of dual-exposed parents exhibited decreased voluntary physical activity on running wheels during the active phase, suggesting alterations in their circadian rhythms. Although differences in parental exposure histories between treatment groups make interpretation challenging, our findings suggest that exposure to alcohol by both parents may have unique effects on behavior and that studying both maternal and paternal alcohol use is essential for understanding the full range of factors influencing the penetrance and severity of alcohol-related phenotypes.