Animal Production Core Alcohol and other substance abuse continue to be enormous public health issues with total costs in the US approaching a half billion dollars a year. Although there are major attempts at prevention, a better understanding of the genetic and environmental factors that increase the risk of alcohol use disorders, the neural circuits that underlie this risk, and the ability to regulate these circuits therapeutically are all still critically needed. In addressing this critical need, this Animal Production Core will continue to provide the P/NP and HAD/LAD rats, as well as the HAP/LAP and cHAP mice that have been selectively bred for a high vs low alcohol preference, to investigators in the Indiana Alcohol Research Center (IARC) or on the Indiana University?Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus. This Core is the outgrowth of over 30 years of experience with selective breeding, maintenance of breeding colonies, and solving problems arising with the logistics and nature of running an operation of this magnitude. We are therefore uniquely qualified in the coming funding period to continue to provide these animals to alcoholism and addiction researchers, to coordinate the use of the animals to avoid scientific overlap, and to manage issues that could affect their phenotype and associated behaviors. Addiction has become a disease of co-abuse, with the majority of individuals dependent on alcohol often being dependent on other licit or illicit substances as well. Given this, there are likely common environmental and genetic factors that result in a broad predisposition to the abuse of many substances, as well as alcohol specifically. The Animal Production Core will continue to characterize these lines (high vs low preference) as animal models of addiction, and promote their use in examining the genetic and neurobiological substrates of substance use, abuse and dependence.
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