Experimental protocol for detecting higher alcohol consumers from a conventional rat line based on basal anxiety

Abstract

Predisposition for a high alcohol intake and the impact of alcohol-abstinence-relapse may be reliable experimentally performed in conventional adult rat lines if animals received juvenile exposure to alcohol (e.g., by forced consumption) and selecting those individuals with high basal anxiety levels during juvenile periods. Importantly, a forced alcohol consumption phase must be followed by an imposed withdrawal period to form an exposure-abstinence cycle (at least two cycles are required) which allow to obtain animals with notorious alcohol relapses. The easier way to test alcohol relapses is through voluntary ethanol intake models. On the other hand, the anxiety classification may be performance by classical paradigms such as an elevated plus maze test, defensive burying behavior test or any other. Here, we provide a step-by-step protocol description to detect higher alcohol consumers animals from male Wistar rats. This protocol should be especially useful for those interested in studying the participation of specific brain nucleus [e.g., periaqueductal gray (PAG)] and/or the neurotransmitters involved [e.g., neuropeptide Y (NPY)] in the alcohol intake phenomena if it is combined with stereotaxic surgery. However, every administration route of treatments or experimental design is appropriate; the limit is the own imagination, and the resources.