The Animal Models Core of the Alcohol Research Center-The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI-ARC) aims has developed and will continue to refine new animal models of alcoholism to provide a framework for testing the overall hypotheses in the TSRI-ARC and the Center at Large. New directions in animal models core include a separation of excessive drinking into two domains: binge drinking, which will be defined by excessive ethanol intake associated with access to a sweet solution under limited access at the beginning of the dark cycle (Self-administered binge drinking-SABD) and withdrawal-induced drinking which will be defined as excessive ethanol consumption during acute and protracted withdrawal after dependence induction (Chronic ethanol induced drinking- CEID). Efforts will be particularly centered on broadening these models to the framework of allostasis, and to the factors of age, gender, and genetic vulnerability. For example, superimposed on these models will be developmental exposure which will include adolescent and adult exposure where excessive drinking during adolescence can serve as both a dependent variable (relative sensitivity of adolescent rats to excessive drinking) and as an independent variable (effects of adolescent exposure on subsequent binge and dependence drinking). In addition to further developing and providing guidelines for animal the animal models, the core will also provide alcohol vapor exposure, measurement of blood alcohol levels, and vaginal smears to the research components of our TSRI-ARC and the Center at Large.
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