Journal
BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 121, Issue 1, Pages 111-119Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/0735-7044.121.1.111
Keywords
risk factors; genetics; environment; ethanol drinking; P and NP rats
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Funding
- NIAAA NIH HHS [R01 AA014339, R01 AA06059] Funding Source: Medline
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Alcoholism is a complex disorder influenced by interactions between genetic and environmental risk factors. This study examined the influence of isolate housing on ethanol intake in alcohol-preferring (P) and non-alcohol-preferring (NP) rats. Rats were isolate-housed or pair-housed for 8 weeks when between 45 and 96 days old. Ethanol drinking was assessed using a 24-hr preference test (10% ethanol vs. water) and 20-min limited access tests. A behavioral test battery was used to assess anxiety-like, depressive-like, acoustic startle, and motor behavior. Isolate housing increased home cage drinking in both lines and increased limited access drinking selectively in P rats. Isolation also reduced swim test immobility and prepulse inhibition in P rats and increased locomotor stereotypies in NP rats. Taken together, these data demonstrate that Line X Environment interactions influence the effects of isolation. Furthermore, isolation selectively increased ethanol intake in high drinking P rats. This effect was not correlated with changes in other behaviors. Selective enhancement of limited access ethanol drinking in P rats may represent a model whereby genetic liability to excessive drinking is enhanced by specific environmental exposures.
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