Increased alcohol preference in rats following repeated exposures to alcohol

✍ Scribed by Warren L. Veale; Robert D. Myers

• Book ID: 104759562
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1969
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 601 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0033-3158
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00403711

✦ Synopsis

When offered water and different solutions of ethyl alcohol in a freechoice situation, naive rats prefer alcohol at low concentrations but reject alcohol as the concentrations are increased sequentially. Rats which were either group or individually housed and forced to drink a non-preferred 12 or 15 per cent alcohol solution, drank less alcohol than control animals in a subsequent free-choice test. On the other hand, the animals that were repeatedly exposed to ll-day periods during which the concentrations of alcohol were systematically increased from 3 to 30 per cent consumed two to three times more alcohol in the seventh sequence than in the first sequence. In the free-choice situation this acclimation effect occurred when water was constantly present. This method appears to be useful for inducing animals to consume large volumes of ethyl alcohol.