Saccharin Potentiates Oral Ethanol Self-Administration in Male C57BL/6J Mice.

Alcohol is one of the most consumed substances by humans and is typically consumed with appetitive stimuli (juice, soft drinks, etc.) that may potentiate consumption. Remarkably, preclinical alcohol self-administration research is often difficult to establish. Researchers rely on alcohol-preferring strains of animals or fading alcohol in slowly to a sucrose solution for self-administration. The current study investigated the relationship between alcohol self-administration and co-presentations of saccharin. We hypothesized that saccharin would increase alcohol self-administration compared to alcohol alone. Eighteen mice were separated into two reinforcer groups: ethanol and ethanol+saccharin. During 1-hr sessions, mice could lever press on a Progressive Ratio schedule of reinforcement for access to a designated reinforcer. Sessions continued for five days at each ethanol concentration (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, and 25%). Active lever presses, inactive lever presses, reinforcers earned, and dose were recorded and analyzed for group differences.

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