MRS has been used to investigate the rodent brain following ethanol exposure via acute binge, repeated binge, and chronic exposure via vapor chamber. In these studies, NAA is lower and Cho is higher in animals following ethanol exposure (Zahr et al., 2010; Zahr, Mayer, Rohlfing, Hsu, et al., 2014; Zahr et al., 2013). Repeated cycles of binge intoxication also resulted in transient decreases of NAA and increases of Cho during intoxication, but recovery during abstinence (Zahr, Rohlfing, et al., 2016). In a chronic alcohol exposure study in rats, NAA levels were lower in the ethanol-exposed than in the control group, but failed to reach significance while Cho levels demonstrated a dose-response curve (i.e., increasing levels with higher and longer alcohol exposure) (Zahr et al., 2009). Normalization of NAA and Cho levels upon discontinuation of alcohol exposure seems to be translatable and indicates that some metabolic changes are directly linked to the toxicity of alcohol (Bartsch et al., 2007).
