Long and short alcohol deprivation: effects on AA and P alcohol-preferring rats

In contrast to all other strains of rats previously tested, the heavy-drinking AA rats were recently found not to increase their daily intake of alcohol after a week without ethanol. This result was now replicated with F52 generation male AAs using Wistars as controls. The same AAs, however, after being switched to a choice between 0.05% saccharin and water, showed a significant increase in saccharin drinking after being deprived of it for a week. Alcohol deprivation for 24 hr or less hardly affected the intake by Wistars during the first hour of renewed intake but sharply increased that by AAs. Still longer deprivation produced progressively smaller first-hour intakes in the AAs. Unlike the AAs, alcohol-preferring P rats showed an increase in alcohol drinking after a week of deprivation similar to that seen with normal rats. However, in common with the AAs, their first hour intake was increased significantly by only a few hours of alcohol deprivation.