Cocaine and Ethanol Interaction in the Conditioned Taste Aversion Paradigm

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between cocaine and ethanol in a variant of the conditioned taste aversion (CTA) paradigm. The preexposure CTA procedure formed the basis of the following set of experiments. Experiments 1a and 1b assessed whether cocaine and ethanol were functionally related with overlapping stimulus properties as reflected in the preexposure CTA procedure. Male Wistar rats with restricted water access were preexposed to cocaine or ethanol for 3 consecutive days. Twenty-four hours after the last preexposure session, rats were conditioned to either ethanol or cocaine, respectively. The results of this set of experiments revealed a symmetrical interaction between cocaine and ethanol, where cocaine and ethanol effectively blocked CTA to one another. These findings suggested that there may be overlapping stimulus properties between cocaine and ethanol, which may be detected in this procedure.