Zeitschrift für Suchtforschung und -therapie

Abstrakt

Social Interactions Affect the Ethanol Preference Forming in Rats

Elena Filatova, Alexey Egorov, and Eugenia Kutcher

Model experiments with animals have showed that social relationships in communities of alcoholized animals are disturbed. The goal of this work was to study patterns of alcohol dependence development during individual alcohol consumption in animals housed in the groups where other members were not alcoholized in comparison to the groups of animals where all members were alcoholized. After 14 days of isolation 48 male Wistar rats were placed by 3 into standard cages. Hierarchical relationships between the rats were observed for the first 15 min after placing them into one cage. After three days of housing in groups the interactions between animals were studied again using the resident–intruder test. On the basis of the interactions recorded in all tests, the animal rank was determined. Studies were carried out in experimental groups of three types: 1) only one rat of each group was given 10% ethanol, whereas the other members received water. Such individual alcoholization was studied in animals of different hierarchical levels. 2) 10% ethanol was given to all animals living together. 3) all rats received water – control group. The level of alcohol preference was assessed in the “«two bottle» test” before and after 27 and 54 days of experiment. It was found, that social interactions significantly affect the development of ethanol preference in rats. Initial high anxiety level as well as subordinate and subordinate ranks predispose to ethanol intake. In groups of drinking together rats ethanol preference develops significantly higher than in case of drinking alone rat housed with alcohol free cage mates. Housing of drinking alone rat with alcohol free rats induces the aversive reaction to ethanol instead of their rank status.