Suppression of voluntary ethanol consumption in rats by electroconvulsive shock

Abstract

When ethanol solutions were presented on alternate days to rats with continuous access to food and water, there was a progressive increase in alcohol selection. However, this increase could be blocked or eliminated, once established, by a series of daily electroconvulsive shocks (ECSs). Two additional experiments suggested that this effect was not the result of a taste aversion conditioned to the noxious aftereffects of the ECS. In Experiment 2 the increase in alcohol selection produced by the periodic regimen was blocked by a series of ECSs which was completed 24 hr before the first presentation of ethanol; and in Experiment 3 a standard conditioned taste-aversion paradigm was employed with ECS in lieu of the usual emetic and there was no evidence of a conditioned taste aversion even after multiple trials. In a fourth experiment increases in the consumption of a sodium-saccharin solution presented on an alternate-day schedule were blocked by a series of ECSs. Thus, it appears that neither the effect of periodic availability on consumption nor its disruption by ECS are specific to ethanol solutions.