Aversive Effects of Ethanol in Adolescent vs. Adult Rats

Researchers Nicole L. Schramm-Sapyta, Alexandra DiFeliceantonio, and Cynthia M. Kuhn (2010), conducted the study of Aversive Effects of Ethanol in Adolescent vs. Adult Rats, looking to address two key questions: Number one, do reduced aversive effects of ethanol in younger rats correlate with increased ethanol consumption? and second, are the reduced aversive effects in adolescents attributable to reduced sensitivity to ethanols physiological effects? A sample of adolescent and adult male CD rats (outbred Sprague-Dawley derived strain) were obtained from Charles River Laboratories (Raleigh, NC), and maintained in a temperature vivarium standard of 12:12 light-dark cycle throughout the experiement. Before the experiment could begin, it was vital to find out which of the 94 rats formed a conditioned taste for ethanol, this was achieved with aversion therapy whereby the rats were deprived of water for 24 hours, and then given 15 minute acccess to a water bottle the next day, this was then repeated but the water was replaced with 0.2% saccharin solution and also injected with ethanol. After another water deprived 24 hours, the rats had access to two bottles, one containing water and the other with 0.2% saccharin solution. The dependent measure was the percent of saccharin consumption on the test day thus the rats that consumed less than 1ml of total solution were excluded from the experiemnt, leaving the researchers