The effect of cocaine on the expression of motor activity and conditioned place preference in high and low alcohol-preferring Wistar rats.

Outbred rats show significant variability in their propensity to consume alcohol. These experiments were designed to examine the effect of cocaine on the expression of motor activation or place preference in outbred Wistar rats that consumed either high or low quantities of alcohol. These rats were exposed to a 2-bottle limited access procedure and dichotomized into 2 groups, high (mean 0.

Ethanol consumption improves avoidance learning in rats: role of deprivation interval.

Voluntary oral self-administration of ethanol in rats has been used to model ethanol consumption and abuse in human beings, with contradictory results. The purpose of the current study was to assess the effect of voluntary ethanol consumption on acquisition of a lever press escape/avoidance task in rats. Male Wistar rats were exposed to ethanol in a limited-access procedure, and either 1 day or 10 days after their last ethanol exposure, animals received a 4-h lever press escape/avoidance session.

The effect of baclofen alone and in combination with naltrexone on ethanol consumption in the rat.

Naltrexone has been evaluated in preclinical animal models of ethanol consumption and found to be effective in most reports. In clinical use, naltrexone has not proved to be as efficacious in preventing relapse. While naltrexone targets opioid receptors, many other neurotransmitter systems are targeted by ethanol and, to a greater or lesser extent, contribute to modulating ethanol's reinforcing effects.

Effect of the combination of naltrexone and acamprosate on alcohol intake in mice.

Both naltrexone and acamprosate have been utilized clinically in recovering alcoholics with varying success. In the experiment reported here the combination of naltrexone and acamprosate was examined in a limited access alcohol model using C57BL/6 mice to determine if there was evidence of additive or synergistic effects. The results of this experiment demonstrate that naltrexone, at the higher dose but not the lower dose, significantly reduced alcohol consumption.

Effect of naltrexone on oral consumption of concurrently available ethanol and cocaine in the rat.

Comorbid abuse of and dependency on multiple drugs is a common occurrence clinically. We have developed an animal model that provides rats with the opportunity to choose, through oral consumption, between concurrently available ethanol and cocaine with water also available. This provides the ability to screen for the effectiveness of potential pharmacotherapeutic agents on the baseline consumption of both drugs.

A comparison of the effects of 6-beta naltrexol and naltrexone on the consumption of ethanol or sucrose using a limited-access procedure in rats.

We recently reported that 6-beta naltrexol, the major metabolite of naltrexone in humans, reduced ethanol consumption in rats. Two new experiments were designed to compare 6-beta naltrexol and naltrexone across three dose levels on an ethanol or sucrose baseline using a limited-access procedure in Wistar rats. The results of Experiment 1 showed that both 6-beta naltrexol and naltrexone reduced ethanol consumption across a range of doses.