Individual characteristics of animal behavior can serve a prognostic parameter of predisposition to use of alcohol. The goal of the work was to study dynamics of formation of preference of alcohol at early stages in the process of forced alcoholization in male and female rats as well as the accompanying changes in behavior parameters. For 3 months, the rats were submitted to the forced alcoholization with 10% ethanol. Each week the rats were tested in the "two-glass trial." Individual peculiarities of all animals were evaluated prior to, after 6 weeks, and after the end of the experiment with aid of the "open field test" and "Suok-test." Results showed that the male rats demonstrating by the end of the experiment the significantly higher level of the alcohol preference, demonstrated at the initial stages of the forced alcoholization the significantly lower preference as compared with the remaining ones. These rats also showed before alcoholization the lower levels of the motor and exploratory activities as compared with control. On the contrary, the individuals that by the end of the experiment did not differ from control by the level of the alcohol preference demonstrated prior to alcoholization in the "Suok-test" the higher anxiety level. In females there was observed a positive correlation of a decrease of the anxiety level in the process of alcoholization with a rise of ethanol consumption. Thus, in male rats, the prognostic parameter predicting formation of the abuse can serve the degree of alcohol preference at the initial stages.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)474-481
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Evolutionary Biochemistry and Physiology
Volume47
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2011

    Research areas

  • anxiety, experimental modeling of alcoholism, sex differences

    Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Biochemistry
  • Physiology

ID: 75889336