Impact of adolescent alcohol use across the lifespan: Long-lasting tolerance to high-dose alcohol coupled with potentiated spatial memory impairments to moderate-dose alcohol

•Adolescent alcohol exposure produces tolerance to high-dose alcohol that lasts at least 18 months.•Adolescent alcohol exposure exacerbates spatial memory deficits in aged rats.•Long lasting tolerance to adolescent alcohol.

Understanding how alcohol exposure during adolescence affects aging is a critical but understudied area. In the present study, male rats were exposed to either alcohol or saline during adolescence, then tested every 4 months following either an ethanol or saline challenge; animals were tested until postnatal day (PD) 532. It was found that long-lasting tolerance to high-dose ethanol exists through the test period, as measured by loss of righting reflex, while tolerance to lower doses of ethanol is not found. In addition, alcohol exposure during adolescence facilitated spatial memory impairments to acute ethanol challenges later in life. The current work demonstrates that exposure to ethanol during adolescent development can produce long-lasting detrimental impairments.