Abstract
Most adults consume alcohol with relative impunity, but about 10–20% of users persist (or progress) in their consumption, despite mounting and serious repercussions. Identifying at-risk individuals before neuroadaptative changes associated with chronic use become well ingrained is thus a key step in mitigating and preventing the end stage disease and its devastating impacts. Explaining liability has been impeded, in part, by the absence of animal models for assessing initial sensitivity to the drug's reinforcing properties, an important endophenotype in the trajectory toward excessive drinking. Here we assess the initial rewarding effects of the drug in a novel application of the conditioned place preference paradigm. In contrast to previous studies that have all employed repeated drug administration, we demonstrated a robust preference for a context paired with a single exposure to 1.5 g/kg EtOH in male and female subjects of three strains. This model validates an assay of initial sensitivity to the subjective rewarding effects of alcohol, a widely used drug with multifarious impacts on both brain and society, and provides a new tool for theory-driven endophenotypic pharmacogenetic approaches to understanding and treating addiction.
Highlights
Though moderate alcohol use is widespread, a portion of users accrue a range of serious adverse consequences, yet maintain excessive consumption (World Health Organization, 2011; Moss et al, 2012; Rehm et al, 2014)
We evaluated whether the absolute value of the difference between saline time and EtOH time was >0 to assess place preference
Among many factors contributing to alcohol dependence and its constellation of adverse consequences is the subjective experience to the drug
Summary
Though moderate alcohol use is widespread, a portion of users accrue a range of serious adverse consequences, yet maintain excessive consumption (World Health Organization, 2011; Moss et al, 2012; Rehm et al, 2014). Progress rests on parsing the broad clinical complexity into more narrowly defined endophenotypes that are intermediate in the chain of causality from genes to disease (Porjesz and Begleiter, 1998; Burmeister, 1999; Seong et al, 2002; Gould and Gottesman, 2006; Crabbe, 2012) One such heritable, quantitative component is the pleasurable, subjective response to the drug, as it depends upon the drug’s influence in multiple neural pathways, varies across the population, and predicts disordered drinking (Heath and Martin, 1991; Schuckit and Smith, 1996; Schuckit et al, 1996; Viken et al, 2003; Ray et al, 2010)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
