Understanding the factors that regulate ethanol intake are critical for effective treatments of alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Interactive factors already established being involved included genetic sensitivity, ethanol's reinforcing capability, and environmental conditions. One critical component controlling drinking may be the nature of ethanol initiation. That initiation processes alter later ethanol drinking has been the working hypothesis of our prior grant period and remains a part of this competing renewal. In our previous grant period we demonstrated that initiated animals consume more ethanol than non-initiated animals. Initiation by means of a sucrose-fading procedure results in greater intakes than does initiation using a secondary conditioning model. Thus, different initiation procedures result in different ethanol intakes. We showed that ethanol intake following initiation was independent of food and fluid intake. When environmental conditions were altered, ethanol intakes increased. However, animals initiated with the sucrose-fading procedure increased their intakes greater than did the secondary conditioning rats. At no time in these studies was excessive drinking found. In an independent study either initiation procedure was shown to overcome a genetic selection for ethanol aversion (NP rats) and resulted in these rats actively working to obtain 40% ethanol. These proposal builds on the findings of the previous grant. Studies are planned to examine the relation of environmental changes upon ethanol intake following initiation. Both the response requirement to obtain ethanol and the time during the day fin which ethanol can be obtained will be varied. f Also, the concentration of ethanol presented will be varied. In a second set of experiments, the relation of initiation procedures and genetic selection will be examined. Animals from the Indiana-preferring and non-preferring strains will be initiated to drink ethanol. They will then be tested in a chronic ethanol drinking condition to determine the pattern and nature of their ethanol consumption. These studies will increase our understanding of ethanol drinking in complex situations and of the regulation of that drinking by alteration of both genetic and environmental factors in addition to the process by which ethanol ingestion is initiated.
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