Alcohol and Alcoholism Vol. 37, No. 5, pp. 427-431, 2002
© 2002 Medical Council on Alcohol
CONDITIONED TASTE AVERSION AND THE MYERS’ HIGH-ETHANOL-PREFERRING RAT
Center for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Studies & Department of Pharmacology, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA
Received 12 July 2001; first review notified 6 February 2002; accepted 15 February 2002
— Aims: Male and female Myers’ high-ethanol-preferring (mHEP) rats were compared to outbred controls in a taste aversion paradigm. Methods: Alcohol-naïve rats were adapted to a 2-h access to water. Each rat was given either 0.05% saccharin (w/v) or 7% ethanol (v/v) as a novel solution for 1 h, after which either 0.5 M LiCl, as the aversive stimulus, or NaCl, as the control, was injected intraperitoneally. Each rat was tested 48 h later by presentation of the same solution. Results: After LiCl injections, saccharin consumption declined 21.6% in female Sprague–Dawley, 9.5% in female mHEP, 33.3% in male Wistar, and 38.3% in male mHEP rats. Ethanol consumption in these groups declined by 88.5, 30, 45 and 52%, respectively. These mHEP rats were then screened for 24-h alcohol consumption on a 10-day 3–30% ethanol vs water ‘step-up’ procedure. During the step-up procedure, only the male mHEP rats trained with ethanol for taste aversion drank less ethanol at the 3–5% concentrations than did rats trained with saccharin. The female mHEP rats did not learn an aversion to either saccharin or ethanol. Conclusions: The female mHEP rat consumes copious amounts of ethanol, but the basis for this consumption may be different from that of the male mHEP rat.